An examination of the work of six so-called "confessional"
poets-Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Randall
Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz, and Sylvia Plath-all schooled in
modernism and poised to break the rules. New York Sun book critic
Kirsch calls these poets "rebellious heirs" of T.S. Eliot, who
famously dictated that poetry should not be "the expression of
personality, but an escape from personality." Indeed, Lowell et al.
were trained variously by New Critics, yet all transcended the
heroic strictures of modernism by artfully working into their
poetry the inner demons of their personal lives, which often
involved mental illness, alcoholism, or suicide. Kirsch proposes a
"brief biography of their poetry" by dropping in a few details from
their lives only to show how brilliantly they reworked the material
for effect. Beginning with Lowell, Kirsch quotes Allen Tate's
appalled warning-after reading Life Studies in manuscript, he
declared, "the poems are composed of unassimilated details,
terribly intimate, and coldly noted . . . of interest only to
you"-then proceeds to analyze Lowell's masterly manipulation of the
material. Bishop's "experiments in control" are set against
Schwartz's "pedestrian" attempts at reconciling art and life
through artful spontaneity and innovation. By juxtaposing his
childhood as a Brooklyn Jewish immigrant with that of the children
of Tsar Nicholas II, for example, in the poem "The Ballad of the
Children of the Czar," Schwartz was the first who dared to dignify
(and elevate) an intimate, shameful experience. Kirsch admirably
works through Berryman's "harrowingly intimate" poetry, which
emerged despite his zealous apprenticeship under Yeats, contrasting
him with Jarrell, who responded to the "burden" of breaking from
Modernism by "respectful, self-protective evasion." The essay on
Plath sheds no new light, but demonstrates a perceptive restraint
when comparing her "juvenilia" with the ferocious, mature style of
later work that transformed her experience "beyond recognition."
Thoughtful studies by an evenhanded critic that will no doubt urge
readers back to the original texts. (Kirkus Reviews)
Lowell, Bishop, Plath, Berryman, Jarrell and Schwartz formed one of
the great constellations of talent in American literature. In the
decades after the Second World War, they changed poetry forever by
putting themselves at risk in their poems in a new and provocative
way. Their daring work helped to inspire the style of poetry now
known as "confessional" but they have become better known for their
tumultuous lives-afflicted by mental illness, alcoholism and
suicide-than for their work. In The Wounded Surgeon "one of the
most promising young poet-critics in America" (Los Angeles Times)
reclaims their achievement by offering critical "biographies of the
poetry"-tracing the development of each poet's work, exploring
their major themes and techniques, and examining how they
transformed life into art.
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