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Article: Confessional poetry & the artifice of honesty.(the marriage of English poet Ted Hughes to American poet Sylvia Plath)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- June 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[To] stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,...
--Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"
Honesty, little slut, must you insist On hearing every dirty word I know And all my worst affairs? Are impotence, Insanity, and lying what you lust for? Your hands are cold, feeling me in the dark.
--Edgar Bowers, "To the Contemporary Muse"
Earlier this year, the London Times led the fanfare for Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters with this front-page banner headline: "Revealed: the most tragic literary love story of our time." Hughes's ...