Diminished but Never Dismissed: The Confessional Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Bruce Beaver

Abstract

the desPeration to enshroud conFessional Poetry in neGativity is remarkable. in its heyday critics called it narcissistic and irrelevant; in the twenty-first century it is labeled passe. According to Alan Williamson, almost from the moment that unfortunate term was coined, confessionalism has been the whipping boy of half a dozen newer schools (51). the legal and religious connotations of confession-sinful, brash, illicit, begging for censure-may be in part to blame. it is also true that the biographical nature of confessional and its engagement with taboo topics such as mental illness, sexuality, mortality, and the subconscious means the poet's life can overshadow the work. some claim that getting mileage out of personal experience is akin to whoredom. others maintain that neuroticism drives confessional poets to foist their suffering upon readers in order to self-satisfy. those eager to vilify confessionalism readily accept the confessional poet as both prostitute and the recipient of the orgasm. Melissa A. Goldthwaite relates the difficulties of teaching plath: said, 'Craft, craft, craft. Look at these line breaks, her use of sound and form.' i pointed to images and allusions. Always, plath's reputation preceded her. students asked: 'didn't she kill herself? How? Are her kids screwed up?' (72). this is how of the greatest poets of the twentieth century has been remembered. sylvia plath is the most famous confessional poet and was a student of Robert Lowell, whose Life Studies in 1959 initiated the genre. Robert phillips describes confessionalism as belonging to the 1960s post-Christian, post-Kennedy, post-pill America (13). While this description may aptly situate plath, her recurring World War ii imagery suggests confessionalism should also be considered postHolocaust and post-bomb-and those identifiers cement confessional poetry's continued international significance.Australian confessional poet Bruce Beaver wrote his first poem at age seventeen as a response to the bombing of Hiroshima. this also marked the onset of his manic-depressive illness. Beaver's work had a considerable inf luence on the development of the Generation of 1968 and the new Australian poetry of the 1970s, but in an interview with thomas shapcott, Beaver said, would rather be a minor world poet than a big Australian poet, and his wish came true. on his death, fellow poet dorothy porter called him one of Australia's least known great poets, describing him as follows:Beaver beat the American Confessional poets at their own game, while revealing the pit of madness under the dozy complacency of Australian society and its [. . .] despite his aura of numinous erudition he is just a middle-aged man who suffers from spring rheumatism [. . .] Beaver loved the idea of the psychopomp [. . .] sometimes he is Hermes, strolling you in and out of private landscapes glowing with unearthly energy. other times he is Charon ferrying you to the underworld.Clear connections can be made between Beaver and plath. Both were highly influential poets. Both center their in post-Holocaust existence, in Greek mythology, and in Jungian notions of the collective unconscious. Both have their craft overshadowed by their biographies and the experiences of mental illness that informed their writing. Both poets are neglected because of the unsettled feeling their causes in the pits of our stomachs.the scope of confessional is mythically mapped by the journey of orpheus. the confessional poet engages us with lyric address, the voice lulling us. We are immersed in the trauma of the poet's personal experience and confront the often-concealed ills that affect humankind. We seek answers and are drawn into the psychological underworld to face our own demons. the poet encodes symbols, which must be understood through biographical, literary, and historical reference, and listened for like footfalls so that we may heal and return to the surface. …