The Universal vein in the confessional poetry

Confessional poetry , its significance and merits , has held a focal place in English literary criticism . It is a term primarily given to the self-disclosure mode of writing and use of intimate subject matter adopted and pioneered in America by Robert Lowell ' in the late 1950s (Drabble , M . and Stringer , J . 2003 ) My thesis proposes to evaluate the confessional poetry of both Robert Lowell and one of his students , Anne Sexton , by comparing and contrasting recurring universal themes adopted by both poets

It was M . L . Rosenthal who `first applied the term confession to

Robert Lowell 's work (Rosenblatt , Jon 1998 ,

.14 . Robert Lowell was considered by countless people to be the most eminent American poet of the late twentieth century he focused on an association of the speaker or protagonist with an image of debasement ' with which he was able to record his damaged psyche onto the outside world (Beach , C 2003 ,

.159 ) Thus confessional poetry grew out of real life struggles and tensions and spoke of personal issues of depression , suffering associations and death - s not tackled within earlier poetry - and frequently written and read like an autobiography of the poet

Anne Sexton was best known for this autobiographical writing style in fact many people believed that all she wrote about had happened or was happening to her . She herself however , the term `personal Gill , J (2004 ,

.1 ) tells us that Sexton explained my poetry is very personal . I don 't think I write public...