Confessionalism

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Confessionalism is a mid-20th-century poetic movement characterized by intensely personal, often autobiographical verse that explores private experiences, psychological struggles, and taboo subjects with raw emotional candor.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Confessionalism canonical 4

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (52)

Predicate Object
instanceOf 20th-century poetry movement
literary movement
poetic movement
contrastsWith formalism
impersonal modernist poetics
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
emergedInContextOf postwar American poetry
field poetry
hasCharacteristic autobiographical content
breaking of social taboos
direct, colloquial language
emotional candor
emphasis on the poet’s own life
exploration of private experiences
exploration of psychological struggles
exposure of intimate details
first-person narration
focus on death and suicide
focus on family relationships
focus on mental illness
focus on sexuality
focus on trauma
intensely personal subject matter
introspective tone
psychological realism
self-analysis
self-revelation
therapeutic or cathartic dimension
treatment of taboo subjects
influenced contemporary autobiographical poetry
feminist poetry
late-20th-century American poetry
spoken word poetry
influencedBy Freudian psychology
existentialism
modernism
post-World War II culture
psychoanalysis
notablePractitioner Anne Sexton
John Berryman
Robert Lowell
Sylvia Plath
W. D. Snodgrass
notableWork Ariel
Heart’s Needle
Life Studies
The Dream Songs
To Bedlam and Part Way Back
period mid-20th century
relatedConcept autobiographical writing
lyric poetry
psychological poetry

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (4)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Lady Lazarus literaryMovement Confessionalism
Morning Song literaryMovement Confessionalism
Sheep in Fog literaryMovement Confessionalism
The Surgeon at 2 a.m. literaryMovement Confessionalism