Confessional poetry or "Confessionalism" is a style of poetry that emerged in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s. [1] It is sometimes classified as a form of Postmodernism. [2] It has been described as poetry of the personal or "I", focusing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and personal trauma, including previously and occasionally still taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide, often set in relation to broader social themes. [3]
The confessional poet's engagement with personal experience has been explained by literary critics as an effort to distance oneself from the horrifying social realities of the twentieth century. Events like the Holocaust, the Cold War, and existential threat brought by the proliferation of nuclear weapons had made public matters daunting for both confessional poets and their readers. [4] The confessional poets also worked in opposition to the idealization of domesticity in the 1950s, by revealing unhappiness in their own homes. [5]
The school of "confessional poetry" was associated with poets who redefined American poetry in the 1950s and 1960s, including Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, and W. D. Snodgrass. [1] [3]
In 1959 M. L. Rosenthal first used the term "confessional" in a review of Robert Lowell's Life Studies entitled "Poetry as Confession". [6] Rosenthal differentiated the confessional approach from other modes of lyric poetry by way of its use of confidences that (Rosenthal said) went "beyond customary bounds of reticence or personal embarrassment". [7] Rosenthal notes that in earlier tendencies towards the confessional there was typically a "mask" that hid the poet's "actual face", and states that "Lowell removes the mask. His speaker is unequivocally himself, and it is hard not to think of Life Studies as a series of personal confidences, rather shameful, that one is honor-bound not to reveal". [8] In a review of the book in The Kenyon Review , John Thompson wrote, "For these poems, the question of propriety no longer exists. They have made a conquest: what they have won is a major expansion of the territory of poetry." [9]
There were however clear moves towards the "confessional" mode before the publication of Life Studies. Delmore Schwartz's confessional long poem Genesis had been published in 1943; and John Berryman had written a sonnet sequence in 1947 about an adulterous affair he'd had with a woman named Chris while he was married to his first wife, Eileen (however, since publishing the sonnets would have revealed the affair to his wife, Berryman didn't actually publish the sequence, titled Berryman's Sonnets, until 1967, after he divorced from his first wife). Snodgrass' Heart's Needle, in which he writes about the aftermath of his divorce, also preceded Life Studies. [10] [11]
Life Studies was nonetheless the first book in the confessional mode that captured the reading public's attention and the first labeled "confessional." Most notably "confessional" were the poems in the final section of Life Studies in which Lowell alludes to his struggles with mental illness and his hospitalization at McLean's, a mental hospital in Massachusetts. Plath remarked upon the influence of these types of poems from Life Studies in an interview in which she stated, "I've been very excited by what I feel is the new breakthrough that came with, say, Robert Lowell's Life Studies, this intense breakthrough into very serious, very personal, emotional experience which I feel has been partly taboo. Robert Lowell's poems about his experience in a mental hospital, for example, interested me very much." [12] A. Alvarez however considered that some poems in Life Studies "fail for appearing more compulsively concerned with the processes of psychoanalysis than with those of poetry" [13] while conversely Michael Hofmann saw the verbal merit of Lowell's work only diminished by emphasis on "what I would call the C-word, 'Confessionalism'". [14]
In a poetry class he taught at Boston University in the late 1950s, Lowell would go on to inspire confessional themes in the work of several prominent American poets. In 1955, Lowell requested a position at the university in part based on the suggestions of his psychiatrist, who advised Lowell to establish a routine in his life to help mitigate the effects of bipolar disorder. [15] Lowell's class drew in a number of talented poets, including Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Sexton joined the class in 1958, and working with Lowell proved pivotal in building her poetic voice. In 1958, Sylvia Plath would also join Lowell's course. [16] After exposure to the personal topics in Lowell's and Sexton's poems, Plath was drawn to confessional themes herself and began including them in her own work. [17]
Other key texts of the American "confessional" school of poetry include Plath's Ariel , Berryman's The Dream Songs , and Sexton's To Bedlam and Part Way Back, though Berryman himself rejected the label "with rage and contempt": "The word doesn't mean anything. I understand the confessional to be a place where you go and talk with a priest. I personally haven't been to confession since I was twelve years old". [18]
Another significant, if transitional figure was Adrienne Rich; [19] while one of the most prominent, consciously "confessional" poets to emerge in the 1980s was Sharon Olds whose focus on taboo sexual subject matter built on the work of Ginsberg.
In the 1970s and 1980s, many poets and writers, like Sharon Olds, Marie Howe, and Franz Wright, were strongly influenced by the precedent set by confessional poetry with its themes of taboo autobiographical experience, of the psyche and the self, and revelations of both childhood and adult traumas.
In an essay published in 1985, poet Stanley Kunitz wrote that Lowell's Life Studies was "perhaps the most influential book of modern verse since T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land ." [20] [21]
More recently, pop singer Taylor Swift has described both herself and Alanis Morissette as songwriters who have been heavily influenced by confessional poetry.[ citation needed ] Artists such as Peter Gabriel, Morrissey, and Madonna have all described Sexton as being influential to their work. [22] [23] [24]
In a 1977 interview with Paris Review , Richard Wilbur criticized confessional poetry, saying, "One of the jobs of poetry is to make the unbearable bearable, not by falsehood, but by clear, precise confrontation. Even the most cheerful poet has to cope with pain as part of the human lot; what he shouldn't do is to complain, and dwell on his personal mischance." [25] Deep Image poet Robert Bly made a similar criticism. [26]
Some literary critics of Confessional poets have noticed a shared ambition among many of these writers to become celebrities. In concurrence with the proliferation of popular culture during the 1950s, confessionalism offered readers a detailed view of the writer's personal hardships, and in light of the considerable public attention which confessional poets received, the confessional movement is seen by some literary critics as a form of celebrity culture. [27]
A literary movement called the Language poets formed as a reaction against confessional poetry and took as their starting point the early modernist poetry composed by Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. Despite this, Language poetry has been called an example of postmodernism in American poetry.
By far the most controversial reaction against confessional poetry is known as New Formalism, which argues for the return to rhymed, metrical, and narrative poetry. New Formalism began during the 1970s and early '80s when younger poets from the Baby Boom Generation began to fight against the dominance of both free verse and confessional poetry. In 1981, New Formalist poet R.S. Gwynn published The Narcissiad, which literary critic Robert McPhillips later dubbed, "a Popean mock epic lambasting contemporary poets". [28]
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.
Anne Sexton was an American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Her poetry details her long battle with bipolar disorder, suicidal tendencies, and intimate details from her private life, including relationships with her husband and children, whom it was later alleged she physically and sexually assaulted.
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the Mayflower. His family, past and present, were important subjects in his poetry. Growing up in Boston also informed his poems, which were frequently set in Boston and the New England region. The literary scholar Paula Hayes believes that Lowell mythologized New England, particularly in his early work.
Alfred Alvarez was an English poet, novelist, essayist and critic who published under the name A. Alvarez and Al Alvarez.
The New Poetry is a poetry anthology edited by Al Alvarez, published in 1962 and in a revised edition in 1966. It was greeted at the time as a significant review of the post-war scene in English poetry.
Confessional writing is a literary style and genre that developed in American writing schools following the Second World War. A prominent mode of confessional writing is confessional poetry, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Confessional writing is often historically associated with Postmodernism due to the features which the modes share: including self-performativity and self-reflexivity; discussions of culturally taboo subjects; and the literary influences of personal conflict and historical trauma. Confessional writing also has historical origins in Catholic confessional practices. As such, confessional writing is congruent with psychoanalytic literary criticism. Confessional writing is also a form of life writing, especially through the autobiography form.
Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published. It was first released in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems of Ariel, with their free-flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from Plath's earlier Colossus poems.
"Daddy" is a poem written by American confessional poet Sylvia Plath. The poem was written on October 12, 1962, four months before her death and one month after her separation from Ted Hughes. It was published posthumously in Ariel during 1965 alongside many other of her poems leading up to her death such as "Tulips” and "Lady Lazarus."
John Allyn McAlpin Berryman was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in the "confessional" school of poetry. His best-known work is The Dream Songs.
Maxine Kumin was an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982.
"Lady Lazarus" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath, originally included in Ariel, which was published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. This poem is commonly used as an example of her writing style. It is considered one of Plath's best poems and has been subject to a plethora of literary criticism since its publication. It is commonly interpreted as an expression of Plath's suicidal attempts and thoughts.
Peter Davison was an American poet, essayist, teacher, lecturer, editor, and publisher.
Life Studies is the fourth book of poems by Robert Lowell. Most critics consider it one of Lowell's most important books, and the Academy of American Poets named it one of their Groundbreaking Books. Helen Vendler called Life Studies Lowell's "most original book." It won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1960.
The Wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets is a book by Adam Kirsch, published in 2005 by W. W. Norton & Company (ISBN 978-0393051971). The book considers in turn the work of six poets whose work has often been labelled 'confessional': Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz and Sylvia Plath. Kirsch has set out to write "a brief biography of their poetry", and attempts to demonstrate that the metaphor of confession has led to a misunderstanding of their work, in particular by doing a disservice to the technique and craft that the writers brought to bear to fashion works of art.
'Poetry as Confession' was an influential 1959 article written by M. L. Rosenthal, reviewing the poetry collection Life Studies by Robert Lowell. The review is credited with being the first application of the term of confession to an approach to the writing of poetry. This led to an entire movement of 20th Century poetry being called 'Confessional poetry'. The article was published in The Nation on 19 September 1959, and was later collected in Rosenthal's book of selected essays and reviews, Our Life In Poetry (1991). Some material from the essay was used in an essay Rosenthal published the following year in his book The Modern Poets: A Critical Introduction.
For the Union Dead is a book of poems by Robert Lowell that was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1964. It was Lowell's sixth book.
In the early years of the 20th century, rhymed lyric poetry, usually expressing the feelings of the poet, was the dominant poetic form in America, Europe and the British colonies. The relevance and acceptability of the lyric in the modern age was, though, called into question by modernism, the growing mechanization of human experience and the harsh realities of war. After the Second World War the form was again championed by the New Criticism, and in the late 20th century lyric once again became a mainstream poetic form.
The Dream Songs is a compilation of two books of poetry, 77 Dream Songs (1964) and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1968), by the American poet John Berryman. According to Berryman's "Note" to The Dream Songs, "This volume combines 77 Dream Songs and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, comprising Books I through VII of a poem whose working title, since 1955, has been The Dream Songs." In total, the work consists of 385 individual poems.
"Sylvia’s Death" is a poem by American writer and poet Anne Sexton (1928–1974) written in 1963. "Sylvia's Death" was first seen within Sexton's short memoir “The Barfly Ought to Sing” for TriQuarterly magazine. The poem was also then included in her 1966 Pulitzer Prize winning collection of poems Live or Die. The poem is highly confessional in tone, focusing on the suicide of friend and fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1963, as well as Sexton’s own yearning for death. Due to the fact that Sexton wrote the poem only days after Plath’s passing within February of 1963, "Sylvia’s Death" is often seen as an elegy for Plath. The poem is also thought to have underlying themes of female suppression, suffering, and death due to the confines of domesticity subsequent of the patriarchy.
Persona poetry is poetry that is written from the perspective of a 'persona' that a poet creates, who is the speaker of the poem. Dramatic monologues are a type of persona poem, because "as they must create a character, necessarily create a persona".
