Confessional Poetry, Sylvia Plath & “Daddy” (Part 1)

Confessional Poetry, Sylvia Plath & “Daddy” (Part 1)

This articles explains a new style of poetry called confessional poetry. This will help you the readers to learn about Sylvia Plath’s life focussing on Confessional Poetry.

1. Emergence of Confessional Poetry

The term “confessional poetry” was first used by the critic M. L. Rosenthal in 1959, in a review of Robert Lowell’s book Life Studies. It describes poetry that openly deals with the poet’s private life. The main confessional poets were Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, W. D. Snodgrass and Sylvia Plath.

2. Context

This style grew in America in the 1950s and 1960s.

• Society valued silence, politeness and a “perfect” family image.
• Women were expected to be wives and mothers.
• Psychology and therapy became popular, so people talked more about the inner mind.
• Poets felt free to break old rules of privacy.

Plath and Anne Sexton attended Robert Lowell’s poetry class in Boston in 1959.

3. Features of Confessional Poetry

• Personal subjects: family, illness, grief, marriage and sexuality.
• First-person voice: “I” speaks directly to the reader.
• Raw emotion and strong honesty.
• Powerful, shocking images.
• Blurring of poet and speaker. But we must remember that the speaker may be a created voice, not exactly the poet.

4. Sylvia Plath’s Life

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, Otto Plath, was a German-born professor. He died in 1940 when she was eight years old. This early loss shaped much of her writing. She studied at Smith College and Cambridge, England. There she met the poet Ted Hughes, and they married in 1956. They had two children and separated in 1962. Plath suffered from depression for much of her life and died in 1963 at the age of thirty. Her best-known collection, Ariel, appeared in 1965, and she also wrote a novel, The Bell Jar.

5. Plath’s Poetics

• Strong imagery: Everyday objects become frightening or symbolic.
• Intense emotion: Anger, fear and grief appear openly.
• Sound and rhythm: Short lines, repetition and sharp sounds.

6. “Daddy” (Part 1)

“Daddy” was written in October 1962, soon after Plath’s marriage ended, and was published in Ariel. The speaker addresses her dead father directly. In the first stanzas, we notice the following.

• The shoe: The speaker says she has lived like a foot inside a black shoe for thirty years. The shoe is a symbol of a tight, frightening and controlling life under her father’s shadow.
• Killing the father: She says, “Daddy, I have had to kill you.” But he died before she could. This shows both anger and unfinished grief.
• The giant statue: The father is pictured as a huge, marble-like figure, almost like a god. The image shows how powerful he seemed to a child.
• Nursery-rhyme sound: The repeated “oo” sound is like a children’s song. Childish sound mixed with violent feeling makes the poem disturbing.

Key Points to Remember

• Confessional poetry makes private life the subject of art.
• Plath’s father’s early death is central to “Daddy.”
• The shoe and statue show fear, control and grief.

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