Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies ISSN: 2321-8819 (Online) Volume 2, Issue 11, November 2014 2348-7186 (Print) Impact Factor: 0.923 Available online at www.ajms.co.in 112 Confessional Poetry In The Light Of Psychoanalytic Theory with Special Reference to Sylvia Plath Dr. Tanu Gupta 1 and Anju Bala Sharma 2 1 Associate Professor, Dept. of Mathematics and Humanities, M. M. University, Mullana (Haryana) Email: tanugupta76@yahoo.com 2 Research Scholar, Dept. of Mathematics and Humanities, M. M. University, Mullana (Haryana) Email: anjubala.sharma20@gmail.com ABSTRACT: Confessional poetry is an expression of personality and never escape from it. The personal life of the poet under the stress of psychological crisis, sex, family life, private humiliation and psychological state of mind are the major concerns in this kind of poetry. The expression of personal pain has been regarded as the hallmark of confessional poetry. It chiefly deals with personal experiences, trauma, depression, psychological break-down and the relationships articulated through a new kind of rhythm and mode of expression. Psychoanalysis acts both as a means of self-analysis and as a literacy device. It enables consideration of the poet not only in terms of the straightforward narration of his/her life, but also in relation to his/her poetic language and the process of creativity. Hence, in order to study the confessional poetry psychoanalytic literary approach objectively plays a significant role. KEY WORDS: Confessional poetry, Electra complex and Psychoanalysis. INTRODUCTION: Confessional poetry flourished in America in twentieth century with the poetic articulations of Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, W.D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton etc. The critic M.L. Rosenthal used this term to describe a new poetry which, he believed, was therapeutic and autobiographical as it „put the speaker himself at the center of the poem in such a way as to make his psychological vulnerability and shame an embodiment of his civilization‟ (Rosenthal, 1985, p. 69). „I‟ or the first person narrative voice in the confessional poetry is the poet himself/herself who confesses his/her repressed feelings to the reader. One definition of confessional poetry is offered by Irving Howe, who argues that „a confessional poem would seem to be one in which the writer speaks to the reader, telling him, without mediating presence of imagined event or persona, something about his life‟. In this sense the main objective of the confessional poetry is to unburden your heart to the reader with the poet‟s untold privacies like personal faults, sexual desires, psychological complexes, and physical privacies like intercourse, menstruation, abortion. . . etc. which simultaneously solidifies the existence of the individual „poet persona‟. Steven Gould Axelrod states three essential elements of confessional poetry: „an undisguised exposure of painful events . . . a dialectic of private matter with public matter . . . and an intimate unornamented style‟ (Axelrod, 1979, p. 98). Here the personal becomes the universal. The new confessional poems removed the mask that poets had been hiding behind and provided an insight into the private lives of the poets. In case of subject matter, confessional poets concentrated on the history of their own life; in case of expression they removed psychological barriers and poetic artifice that arrested the free flow of poetic consciousness. In A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams defines confessional poetry as „a type of narrative and lyric verse, given impetus by Robert Lowell‟s Life Studies (1959), which deals with the facts and intimate mental and physical experiences of the poet‟s own life‟ (Abrams, 2005, p. 45). M.L. Rosenthal explains this concept of confessional poetry in his review on Robert Lowell‟s Life Studies: „Lowell removes the mask. His speaker is unequivocally himself, and it is hard not to think of Life Studies as series of personal confidences, rather shameful, that one is honour-bound not to reveal‟ (Rosenthal, 1985, p. 64). Lowell‟s Life Studies dealt with many of his family dysfunctions, alcoholism, and sexual guilt, and thereby breaking the previous poetic tradition. The word „confession‟ is derived from the verb „to confess‟, which means to acknowledge or to admit. It has a religious connotation as it denotes a Catholic practice in which a guilty person confesses his or her guilt before the Father of the Church and prays for forgiveness. This process of making confession was clearly therapeutic, as it aims to unburden one‟s conscience and to rest in peace. Then from religion the term „confession‟ was adopted by psychiatrists. While trying to ascertain the cause of a patient‟s neurosis, the doctor made him to confess or to narrate the incident. By the process of self-analysis, the psychiatrist helps the patient to purge the buried experiences. Some poets like Anne Sexton and