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Confessionalism. Jeanette Cibelli. What is Confessionalism ?. American poetry movement of the 1950’s & 1960’s Typically Northern US Explores personal struggles, fears, or experiences candidly School of the “I”; autobiographical Self-revelation; sometimes difficult for people to write
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Confessionalism Jeanette Cibelli
What is Confessionalism? • American poetry movement of the 1950’s & 1960’s • Typically Northern US • Explores personal struggles, fears, or experiences candidly • School of the “I”; autobiographical • Self-revelation; sometimes difficult for people to write • Connection forged between reader & poet • Poetry used as an outlet • Ranges structurally depending on the poet • Exert influence on contemporary poets
Historical Context • Early 1950’s—post WWII • Cold War • 1953—end of Korean War • 1960’s—2nd wave of feminism/women’s movement • 1962—Cuban Missile Crisis • 1950’s-1970’s—Vietnam War
Evolution of Confessionalism • Similar poetry presented itself centuries before in the works of Propertius & Petrarch • During the 20th century, poetry encompassed public as well as private issues. • However, presentation is more indicative of confessionalism than content. • The term “confessionalist” was first used by M. L. Rosenthal in his 1959 review of Lowell’s poetry collection Life Studies.
Notable Poets • Robert Lowell & W. D. Snodgrass • First confessionalist poets • Anne Sexton • Sylvia Plath • John Berryman • Allen Ginsberg
Robert Lowell • His 1959 collection of poems Life Studies prompted the start of the movement (along with Snodgrass’s Heart’s Needle) • Influenced many other poets • Struggled with mental illness, marriage, war, & depression • Poems not structured rigidly
Sylvia Plath • Poet from a young age • Student of Lowell with Sexton • Poems characterized by the combination of “violent or disturbed imagery & playful use of alliteration and rhyme” (poets.org) • Struggled with her father’s early death, depression, marriage, divorce • Committed suicide in 1963 • Pulitzer Prize winner
Anne Sexton • Struggled with family, school, modeling, marriage, postpartum depression, mental breakdowns • Began writing after being admitted to a mental hospital in 1954 • attended Lowell’s workshop with Plath • Poems focus on feminist ideas & the body • 1966 collection Live or Die is her fictionalized journey to mental recovery • Pulitzer Prize winner • Committed suicide in 1974 • Wrote the poem “Sylvia’s Death” to Plath out of jealousy
Historical Context Comparison Global Confessionalism 1959—Lowell’s Life Studies 1959—Snodgrass’s Heart’s Needle 1962—Plath’s Colossus 1963—Plath’s suicide 1966—Sexton’s Live or Die 1974—Sexton’s suicide 1977—Lowell’s death 2009—Snodgrass’s death • Early 1950’s—post WWII • Cold War • 1953—end of Korean War • 1960’s—2nd wave of feminism/women’s movement • 1962—Cuban Missile Crisis • 1950’s-1970’s—Vietnam War
I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disaligned. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind. “Her Kind” Anne Sexton From To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960)
