CONFESSIONAL ELEMENT IN SALVIA PLATH’S POETRY

BY
MAHRUKH SAIF
2948(539963)
BS ENGLISH LITERATURE
6TH SEMESTER (E)
AMERICAN POETRY
 CONTENTS:-
• Plath’s biography
• Confessional poetry
• Introduction
• Elements and Style
• Traits with Example
 PLATH’S
BIOGRAPHY:-
• She was born in 1932 and died in 1963.
• She was an American poet, novelist, short-stories
writer, and essayist.
• She is regarded as confessional poet.
• She has written an autobiographical novel.
• Her famous poems are “mirror”, “daddy” etc.
 CONFESSIONAL
POETRY:-
• Confessional poetry is a type of lyric and
narrative verses.

• It deals with intimate experiences and facts of

poets own life.
 INTRODUCTION
:-
• It is a style of poetry that emerged
in US during the late 1950s and
early 1960s.
• It is sometimes also classified a
form of post-modernism.
 ELEMENT AND
STYLE:-
• Private experience with feelings about death
and relationships were addressed in the type
of poetry.
 TRAIT
S:-
1_-Intimate subject matter:-
• Focus on the subject matter issues like drug abuse sexual guilt, suicide and depression,
which are typically shameful or embarrassing ,were discussed openly.
• For example,
In her poem, "daddy”, she writes about how much se hates her father . ”Daddy , I have had to
kill you”.
2 - First person narration:-
• Confessional poetry is the poetry of “I”. Its means a 1st person
point of view.
• Allowing the reader to delve closely into the thoughts and
feelings of Plath. 
• For example,
In her poem “the arrival of the bee box” ,she writes,
“I have to live with it overnight”
“I can’t keep away from it”
“It is dark, dark”
“Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!”
3- Autobiographical by design:-
• By nature, confessional poems are autobiographical meant to
record depressing thoughts of an author, which is now
commonly practice in countless autobiographies and essay.
• For example,
In her poem, “morning song”
“I’m no more your mother,
Than the cloud that distils a mirror”
4- Lyrical by craftsmanship:-
• It may be easy to assume that confessional poets simply
put pen to paper and poured out their feeling in a free
flowing not described.
• For example,
in her poem “mirror” , she writes :
“ I am silver and exact”
“I am not cruel only truthful.”
Thank you
Stay Blessed