Anne Sexton

Introduction

Anne Sexton or Anne Gray Harvey was born in Norton, Massachusetts on November 9, 1928. She spent most of her life in Massachusetts. In 1945, she completed her schooling at the Rogers Hall in Lowell, Massachusetts. She got married to Alfred Muller Sexton II in 1948. They got divorced in 1970; at that time, they had two daughters, Linda Gray Sexton (1953), who later became a novelist, and Joyce Sexton (1955). In 1954, she was diagnosed with postpartum depression, suffered her first nervous breakdown and was admitted to the hospital Westwood Lodge. In 1955, after the birth of her second daughter, Sexton suffered another severe attack of depression and was hospitalized again. Her daughters were sent to live with his paternal grandparents. In the same year, she attempted suicide on her birthday. In the beginning of 1956, her mental condition reached at maximum, leading up to her first psychiatric hospitalization and she attempted to suicide (Sexton, 1994, 67-80).

Her life

Anne was the youngest of her three sisters; she was always craving attention and being loved by her parents. She saw her eldest sister Jane became her Daddy's daughter, while, her second sister Blanche was considered to be most intelligent among them. This time of life was tough for her as children of this age require proper attention, but in her case, she was being ignored by her parents. This was also affecting her mental condition as she got depressed afterwards. When she was 17, her parents sent her off to Rogers Hall, a preparatory school for girls, in Lowell, Mass as she had a wild nature they hoped that it would help to cure her wild nature and shape her into a proper woman. At that time, she got in to poetry and her first book was published (Badia, 2005, 252).

Dr. Martin Orne was her physician who encouraged her to write poetry. Similarly, she enrolled to a poetry workshop by John Holmes. After that time her poems got recognition, especially after its publication in various prestigious journals such as American New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and the Saturday Review. In 1958, Anne enrolled in Robert Lowell's graduate writing seminar at Boston University, where she met Sylvia Plath and George Starbuck. In 1957, she met Sylvia Plath at a poetry workshop and they both exerted a great influence one another. Anne Sexton was listed as a "confessional poet" in her writings because her poetry offered an intimate glimpse of the emotional distress that characterized her life (Middlebrook, 1992, 160-98).

Her poetry also reflected extreme sensitivity to reject contentment and resigned the acceptance of existing standards, through themes such as incest and adultery. She struggled hard to get rid of her psychiatric condition and relentless passing of time. Anne had a delicate mental health which was affecting her badly. She was awarded the Audience Poetry Prize in 1959.After this award, Anne began her work to publish the first of her books of poetry entitled To Bedlam and Part Way Back. After the successful publishing ...