Unspeakable Femininity: Love, Motherhood and Depression in Sylvia Plath’s and Anne Sexton’s Poetry

Abstract

[Abstract] This undergraduate project analyzes a selection of poems written by two United States authors: Sylvia Plath —“Love Letter” (1960), “Morning Song” (1961) and “Lady Lazarus” (1962) —and Anne Sexton— “For My Lover, Returning to His Wife” (1969), “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward” (1960) and “Imitations of Drowning” (1962). While providing a close reading of the poems, this study compares Plath’s and Sexton’s treatment of love, motherhood and depression, and discusses the importance of form when developing the mental state of the poetic persona. To pursue these objectives, I base my analyses on Middlebrook’s extensive research on Sexton, Bloom’s collection of essays on Plath, and a few selected approaches to feminism in Humm’s Dictionary of Feminist Theory, among other secondary sources. To conclude, I reflect upon Plath’s and Sexton’s poetry as a valuable tool for the liberation of women, highlighting both authors’ ability to defy patriarchal constraints by overcoming previous taboos and poeticizing female experience in all its forms.