Confessional Poetry in the Cold War : The Poetics of Doublespeak (American Literature Readings in the 21st Century) (1st ed. 2022. 2022. ix, 186 S. IX, 186 p. 210 mm)

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 bomb's shadow was a form of poetic doublespeak that critiqued the impact of an affective Cold War politics without naming names. 1. Introduction: The Poetics of Doublespeak.- 2. "Lack-Land Atoms Split Apart": Robert Lowell's Atomic Confessions.- 3. The Poetics of Double-Talk: John Berryman's Dream Songs as Cold War Testimonials.- 4. Fastening a New Skin: Anne Sexton, Self-Help, and the Illness of Responsibility.- 5. Toward a Poetics of Terror: Sylvia Plath and the Instant of Death.- 6. New Critical Conspiracy Theory: Randall Jarrell and the Poetics of Dissent. Adam Beardsworth is a professor of English at Memorial University's 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. "Confessional Poetry in the Cold War is structured well ... . Scholars from literary studies, American studies, and feminist surveillance studies, as well as surveillance researchers more generally, will benefit from reading Confessional Poetry in the Cold War. Those researching at the intersection of mental health and surveillance will find Beardsworth's monograph particularly useful as this is a recurring theme explored throughout." (Jade Hinchliffe, Surveillance & Society, Vol. 20 (3), 2022)