t a week after writing 'Edge' Plath herself would be dead" (Pollitt 95). Hughes undoubtedly did not count on the effect this would create. Rather than making it appear that a madwoman, and talented poet, had closed the book on herself it produced a wave of identification and anger. In 'Edge" the words "The woman is perfected / Her dead // Body wears the smile of accomplishment" may have seemed too neatly coincident with Plath's experience to be anything but her last words. But, rather than perceiving this as a clear sign of madness and something both horrifying and pitiable, readers wanted an explanation. They wanted this explanation, however, in terms of Plath's biography. They had accepted the invitation to view her work within the very restricted frame of reference of her life and death. Thus Hughes was the first to play the autobiography card in the posthumous discussion of Plath's work--even as he tried to avoid some of the fallout from this approach.
The very strong "element of identification" that began then continues even today and, a
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