THE CONFESSION(AL) AND THE RE-BIRTH OF TALES IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY: A READING OF TRANSFORMATIONS BY ANNE SEXTON
THE CONFESSION(AL) AND THE RE-BIRTH OF TALES IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY: A READING OF TRANSFORMATIONS BY ANNE SEXTON

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the re-birth of the famous tales by the Brothers Grimm in the poetry of Anne Sexton, namely in the volume Transformations. The paper will explore the way these tales are now seen in the perspective of a (confessional) poet who meditates on/through them and re-conceptualizes them in a lyrical fashion, thus making the volume a unique model of confession although it seems as if Sexton in this volume abandons her confessional mode. What makes such popular and very familiar tales seem new, different and challenging when they are re-written as a confession of the lyrical self, as a memory, as a verse narrative or even as a set of oneiric images that turn to question the past and some of the basic images that form our thinking since childhood? The boundaries of the self, womanhood, the concept of quest, of right and evil, the facing of the impossible, the dark and hidden sides of (modern) life etc. are only few of the concepts that seem to enrich Sexton‘s re-reading of these tales.

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