'Confessional' Writing and the Twentieth-Century Literary Imagination [Hardcover]

Far from being a unique, defining property of the confessional poets, confessionalism is a central trope of American literature. This book examines confessional writing not as a private, apolitical art, but rather one that demonstrates an engagement with the politics of literary influence, of gender relations, and of American culture more broadly.Acknowledgements Introduction Anne Sexton, Confession, and the Autobiographical Fallacy John Berryman and Psychoanalytic Poetics The Madwoman in the Asylum: The Confessional Writer and the Twentieth-Century Literary Imagination Madness and the Confessional Paradigm Conclusion Bibliography IndexMIRANDA SHERWIN received her Ph.D. from Columbia University, USA.?She has written articles and book reviews on diverse topics such as film, feminist pedagogy, autobiography and poetry and has taught Women's Studies at Rutgers University and the College of Staten Island, USA. She is currently at work on a new book entitled Women on the Verge: Female Depression in Film and Literature.