Confessional poetry in the Cold War : the poetics of doublespeak / Adam Beardsworth.

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Confessional poetry in the Cold War : the poetics of doublespeak / Adam Beardsworth.

9783030931155 (electronic bk.)
3030931153 (electronic bk.)
9783030931148
3030931145

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, [2022]

©2022

English

1 online resource.

10.1007/978-3-030-93115-5 doi

PS323.5 .B43 2022

811/.5409

This book explores how confessional poets in the 1950s and 1960s US responded to a Cold War political climate that used the threat of nuclear disaster and communist infiltration as affective tools for the management of public life. In an era that witnessed the state-sanctioned repression of civil liberties, poets such as Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Randall Jarrell adopted what has often been considered a politically benign confessional style. Although confessional writers have been criticized for emphasizing private turmoil in an era of public crisis, examining their work in relation to the political and affective environment of the Cold War US demonstrates their unique ability to express dissent while averting surveillance. For these poets, writing the fear and anxiety of life in the bombs shadow was a form of poetic doublespeak that critiqued the impact of an affective Cold War politics without naming names. Adam Beardsworth is a professor of English at Memorial Universitys Grenfell Campus, Canada, where he teaches contemporary literature and critical theory. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters on US and Canadian poetry and is a past-president of the Canadian Association for American Studies. He lives in Steady Brook, Newfoundland.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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American literature readings in the 21st century.

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