Movements
Confessional Poetry
Also Known As Confessionalism
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
A style of American poetry that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, addressing personal and psychological material, trauma, mental illness and the self in ways earlier poetic decorum had reserved from print. The critic M.L. Rosenthal coined the term "confessional" in a 1959 review of Robert Lowell's Life Studies, and the label was then extended to poets including Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and W.D. Snodgrass. The movement is closely associated with its poets' own biographies, several of whom, including Plath and Sexton, died by suicide, which has shaped both the movement's critical reception and later debate over reading its poems as autobiography.
Facts
Disputed
Period, To (Year)The core group, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath and W.D. Snodgrass, published its defining work between 1959 and the mid-1970s; because the confessional mode's influence continues in later poetry with no clear closing event, literary historians differ on whether, or where, to place an end date. Period, From (Year)Anchored to the publication of Robert Lowell's Life Studies and Rosenthal's review coining the term; sources describe the movement's emergence more loosely as "late 1950s." Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated Authors
Developed the style alongside Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton in Lowell's Boston University seminar; one of the movement's most widely read poets.
Sources
1. Life Studies (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Reception sectionQuote, Reception section
For this reason, Life Studies is viewed as one of the first confessional books of poetry, although some poets and poetry critics such as Adam Kirsch and Frank Bidart question the accuracy of the confessional label.
1. Life Studies (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Reception section, on the book's standingQuote, Reception section, on the book's standing
Life Studies is viewed as one of the first confessional books of poetry
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Confessional Poetry (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)lead sectionQuote, lead section
Confessional poetry or "Confessionalism" is a style of poetry that emerged in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Sylvia Plath (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Associated Authors: Sylvia Plath, Boston University seminar section, confessional poetryQuote, Associated Authors: Sylvia Plath, Boston University seminar section, confessional poetry
Within this seminar, Plath, Lowell and Sexton, whilst starting with very different writing styles, each gravitated towards a new style of poetry dubbed confessional for its use of personal experience and its tendency to use a direct form of address.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.