Confessional Style of Writing in Kamala Das’ The Suicide And Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus:A Comparative Study

The confessional style of writing emerged in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Confessional poetry is the poetry which springs from the personal or private compulsions of a poet. Private experiences and feelings about death, trauma, depression and relationships are addressed in this type of poetry, often in an autobiographical manner. The poet reveals directly or indirectly his or her own experiences, problems and psychological complex in his or her poetry. The real subject matter of confessional poetry is the poet’s own self. The confessional style of writing poetry is associated with Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Randal Jarrel, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath etc. The confessional poetry of the mid-twentieth century discussed the subject matter which has not been openly analysed in American poetry. The confessional poets of the 1950’s and1960’s were fore-runners of this type of writing that forever altered the landscapes of American poetry. Confessionalism has no leader, no manifesto although it became an extreme development in modern poetry. So it is often difficult to point out this style exactly. The expression of personal pain has been regarded as a hallmark of confessional poetry.