Five interesting facts about the poet Sylvia Plath

1. The first time Sylvia Plath met Ted Hughes, she was so excited that she bit him on the face. The two felt an inexplicable attraction to one another and almost immediately began biting each other’s faces off – literally. When they left the party at which they had met, Plath noticed that blood was running down Hughes’ face.

2. Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath married on 16^th June – because of James Joyce. Plath and Hughes chose this day for their nuptials in honour of Bloomsday, the day on which the action of James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses takes place. But Joyce himself chose 16th June because, among other things, it was the day on which, in 1904, he had his first proper date with Nora Barnacle, the woman who later became his wife. We’ve discussed this, and other Joycean and Ulyssean moments…