In the 1960's, a new school of American poets emerged whom M. L. Rosenthal, in his book The New Poets, labelled "The Confessional Poets" (Phillips 1973). Confessional poets distinguished themselves by their frank, autobiographical work detailing their experiences and, frequently, their personal weaknesses and failures. The poetry itself, like the subject matter, was often raw, lacking a crisp, predictable metrical structure, and confessional poets expressed themselves in the first person, using straightforward, unadorned language. Although one can find examples of "confessional" poetry dating back to Ancient Greece, and the inklings of confessional poetry as we know it can be found in the work of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, the modern school traces its immediate roots to Robert Lowell and his part prose, part poetry book Life Studies, published in 1959; aside from Lowell, two of the most famous confessional poets were Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. This research will discuss the confessional poetry of Lowell, Sexton and Plath as well as the earlier, "proto-confessional" work of Whitman and Dickinson.
Little in Robert Lowell's earlier work hinted at the revolutionary flood he unleashed in Life Studies. Lowell had of course written personal pieces before the publication of Life Studies, but his earlier poetry was written in more traditional closed forms, and it lacked the blunt, sometimes shocking honesty of his confessional work. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1954, Lowell's therapist suggested he write prose rather than poetry, since writing prose was less strenuous and less likely to overexcite him. In 1955, therefore, Lowell began to work on the autobiographical prose which was ultimately incorporated into Life Studies. Lowell found that prose had its downside, too, however--he felt compelled to account for every transition, every detail in order to maintain the level of continuity expected in prose. His co...