Saturday, January 28, 2012

Are death and sucide a part of the confessional mode in Sylvia Plath's poetry?

Typical characteristics of Confessional poetry are
:


-The use of "I"
stories


-Descriptions of personal life (including family
trials and personal struggles)


-Craft was true to poetic
conventions and forms


The most famously known
Confessionalists were Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia
Plath.


Given that the poetry of Sylvia Plath dealt with
themes common to typical works of the Confessionalits (suicide, death, and mental
illness), Plath definitely fits properly into the category of the
Confessionalist.


Her poem "Barren Woman" deals with her
inner feelings about her depression. In the poem "Daddy", Plath openly talks about
murdering her father (perhaps figuratively based upon personal interpretation "Daddy, I
have had to kill you"). The poem "Cut" includes Plath's feelings on injuring herself
superficially to ending her life- "I have taken a pill to
kill."


Simplistically, any work in which one openly
discusses and states personal feelings regarding their own life and the happenings in
their life would be considered Confessional.

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