Editing Confessional writing

{{Short description|Literary style}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}}
'''Confessional writing''' is a literary style and genre that developed in American writing schools following the [[Second World War]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/912318238 |title=Narratives of the self |date=2015 |first1=Paweł |last1=Schreiber |first2=Joanna |last2=Malicka |isbn=978-3-653-04504-8 |location=Frankfurt am Main [Germany] |oclc=912318238}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> A prominent mode of confessional writing is [[confessional poetry]], which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Confessional writing is often historically associated with [[Postmodernism]] due to the features which the modes share: including self-performativity and [[Self-reference|self-reflexivity]]; discussions of culturally [[taboo]] subjects; and the literary influences of personal conflict and [[historical trauma]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gill |first=Jo |editor-first1=Jo |editor-last1=Gill |url=https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203449240 |title=Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2005 |isbn=9780203449240 |location=London |pages=2–6 |doi=10.4324/9780203449240 |language=en}}</ref> Confessional writing also has historical origins in [[Confessional|Catholic confessional practices]].<ref name=":2">{{Citation |title=3. Sexuality and Confession (with James Bohman) |date=31 December 2019 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/9781501728587-005 |work=Masculinity and Morality |pages=42–57 |place=Ithaca, NY |publisher=Cornell University Press |doi=10.7591/9781501728587-005 |isbn=9781501728587 |s2cid=243637365 |access-date=2022-05-11|url-access=subscription }}</ref> As such, confessional writing is congruent with [[psychoanalytic literary criticism]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=De Nervaux |first=Laure |date=15 June 2007 |title=The Freudian Muse: Psychoanalysis and the Problem of Self-Revelation in Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" and "Medusa" |url=http://journals.openedition.org/erea/186 |journal=E-rea |volume=5 |issue=1 |doi=10.4000/erea.186 |issn=1638-1718|doi-access=free }}</ref> Confessional writing is also a form of [[life writing]], especially through the autobiography form.<ref name=":7" />

Confessional writing usually involves the disclosure of personal revelations and secrets, often in first-person, non-fiction forms such as [[Diary|diaries]] and memoirs.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Griffin |first=Gabriele |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/994878353 |title=A dictionary of gender studies |date=2017 |isbn=978-0-19-183483-7 |edition=1st |location=Oxford |language=en |oclc=994878353}}</ref> Confessional writing often employs colloquial speech and direct language to invoke an immediacy between [[Reader response|reader and author.]] Confessional writers also use this direct language to radically reduce the distance between the speaker-persona of a text and the writer's personal voice.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last1=Hart |first1=James D. |last2=Leininger |author-link1=James D. Hart |first2=Phillip W. |title-link=The Oxford Companion to American Literature |title=The Oxford companion to American literature |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |isbn=0-19-506548-4 |oclc=180019666}}</ref> Confessional writing can also be fictive, such as in the hybrid form of the ''[[roman à clef]]''.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |first1=Arielle |last1=Greenberg |first2=Becca |last2=Klaver |date=2009 |title=Mad Girls' Love Songs: Two Women Poets—a Professor and Graduate Student—Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and the Poetics of Female Adolescence |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lit.0.0087 |journal=College Literature |volume=36 |issue=4 |pages=179–207 |doi=10.1353/lit.0.0087 |s2cid=144248848 |issn=1542-4286|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Though originating in American literary circles, by writers and poets such as [[Adrienne Rich]], [[Robert Lowell]], [[Sylvia Plath]], and [[Anne Sexton]], the style has gained global use concurrently with the growth of [[Postcolonialism|Postcolonial theory]] at the end of the 20th century,<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Ahima |first=K. S. |date=2021 |title=Catharsis of Confessional Writing: A Comparative Study of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar and Kamala Das's My Story |journal=Language in India |volume=21 |issue=10 |pages=79–91}}</ref> especially throughout [[Eurasia]] and the Middle East.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |first=Salam |last=Mir |date=1 October 2013 |title=Political Engagement: The Palestinian Confessional Genre |journal=Arab Studies Quarterly |volume=35 |issue=4 |doi=10.13169/arabstudquar.35.4.0360 |issn=0271-3519|doi-access=free }}</ref> Confessional writing has also influenced other mediums, including the visual arts and reality television.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Grobe |first=Christopher |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479829170.001.0001 |title=Art of Confession |date=7 November 2017 |publisher=NYU Press |doi=10.18574/nyu/9781479829170.001.0001 |isbn=978-1-4798-2917-0}}</ref>

A highly influential movement, confessional writing has been critiqued as narcissistic, self-indulgent, as well as a violation of the [[privacy]] of the private individuals which confessional writers depict.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |first=Zachary |last=Leader |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/932053414 |title=On life-writing |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-870406-5 |oclc=932053414}}</ref>

== Development of the confessional writing genre ==
[[File:36. Portrait of Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1930.jpg|thumb|A photograph of [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], taken in 1930. Wittgenstein theorised on the psychological implications and mechanisms of confession as a cathartic act.|left|233x233px]]
The confessional writing genre has historical roots in Catholic confessional practices.<ref name=":2" /> Works such as [[Augustine of Hippo|St. Augustine's]] [[Confessions (Augustine)|''Confessions'']] and [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]'s [[Confessions (Rousseau)|''Confessions'']] are historic antecedents to the modern confessional genre in their depictions of secret emotions, personal revelations, and of sin.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bathory |first=Peter Dennis |date=May 1997 |title=Augustine through a modern prism |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02912214 |journal=Society |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=73–76 |doi=10.1007/bf02912214 |s2cid=147204355 |issn=0147-2011|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hartle |first=Ann |title=The Modern Self in Rousseau's Confessions: a Reply to St. Augustine. |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press |year=1983}}</ref>

In the early 20th century, the growth of [[psychoanalysis]] increased academic interest in the psychological functions of confession itself.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parker |first=Ian |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429629488 |title=Psychoanalysis, Clinic and Context: Subjectivity, History and Autobiography |year=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-03199-1 |edition=1st |language=en |doi=10.4324/9780429031991|s2cid=171775824 }}</ref> Following their expatriation from wartime [[continental Europe]] to the United Kingdom and United States during the Second World War, eminent psychoanalytical theorists including [[Sigmund Freud]], [[Heinz Hartmann]], [[Ernst Kris]], [[Rudolph Loewenstein (psychoanalyst)|Rudolph Loewenstein]], and [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] began to theorise on the [[Defence mechanism|defence functions]] of [[Id, ego and super-ego|ego]] in times of conflict.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kuriloff |first=Emily A. |date=15 August 2013 |title=Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203845882 |doi=10.4324/9780203845882|isbn=9781136930416 }}</ref> Wittgenstein expounded on confession as a 'means of self-development,'<ref>{{Cite news |last=Beale |first=Jonathan |date=18 September 2018 |title=Opinion {{!}} Wittgenstein's Confession |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/opinion/wittgensteins-confession-philosophy.html |access-date=2022-05-18 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> in that the catharsis facilitated by the act of confession allowed for [[Closure (psychology)|closure]], and the progression away from both unconscious and conscious suffering: writing in 1931 that 'a confession must be part of your new life.'<ref>Peters, Michael A. "Writing the Self: Wittgenstein, Confession and Pedagogy." ''Education, Philosophy and Politics'', Routledge, 2012, pp. 39–53, {{doi|10.4324/9780203155899-6}}

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The literary 'confessional' term was first attributed to a form of writing in 1959: by critic [[M. L. Rosenthal|M.L. Rosenthal]] in response to the confessional poet [[Robert Lowell]]'s seminal anthology ''[[Life Studies]]''.<ref>Rosenthal, M. L. (1959) ''Poetry as Confession.'' The Nation.</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Poetry |date=17 May 2022 |title=Confessional Poetry |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/151109/an-introduction-to-confessional-poetry |access-date=2022-05-18 |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en}}</ref> The anthology is widely regarded as a seminal confessional text, in the poet's revelations on his relationship to his parents, marital conflict, depression, and generational trauma.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":9" /> Many Confessional Writers at the time were associated with or worked in American writing schools at institutions such as [[Boston University]].<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |first=Paula |last=Hayes |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1058678145 |title=Robert Lowell and the Confessional Voice |date=2013 |publisher=Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers |isbn=978-1-4539-0836-5 |oclc=1058678145}}</ref> Though the style has since gained global use (See: ''Global influence)'', confessional writing emerged in America during the turbulent late 1950s and early 1960s, and was initially characterised by movements away from strictly [[Metre (poetry)|metred]] verse to [[free verse]].<ref name=":1" /> Following the Second World War, the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]], and during other collective traumas such as the [[Cold War]], American 'cultural alienation'<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Molesworth |first=Charles |date=1976 |title="With Your Own Face On": The Origins and Consequences of Confessional Poetry |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/440682 |journal=Twentieth Century Literature |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=163–178 |doi=10.2307/440682 |jstor=440682 |issn=0041-462X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> induced writers to externalise their internal, psychological anxieties and [[angst]]s<ref name=":4" /> through their literary outputs.

The period was also marked by the secession of [[Modernism]] to Postmodernism,<ref>J. H. Dettmar, (2006). Modernism, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, ed. David

Scott Kastan. Oxford University Press, 2006.</ref> the [[Civil rights movement]], the [[LGBT movements|Gay Rights Movement]], and the onset of [[Second-wave feminism|Second Wave Feminism]] and [[Postcolonialism]].<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /> As such, early confessional works, by writers such as [[Adrienne Rich]], [[Sylvia Plath]], [[Dan Guenther]], and Robert Lowell encompass personal and social issues including distrust of [[metanarrative]]s, [[solipsism]], taboos, and the transgression of restrictive social roles.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20866684|title=Risky Writing: Self-Disclosure and Healing through Writing|author=Bauer, Dale M.|year=2005|journal=JAC|volume=25|issue=1|pages=213–218|jstor=20866684 }}</ref><ref name=":13">{{Cite book |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203724484 |title=Histories of Postmodernism |date=19 September 2020 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780203724484 |isbn=978-0-203-72448-4 |s2cid=170443601 |editor-last=Bevir |editor-first=Mark |editor-last2=Hargis |editor-first2=Jill |editor-last3=Rushing |editor-first3=Sara}}</ref>

Contemporary confessional works encompass broader social issues, including drug-use, digital identity, popular culture, and political engagement.<ref name=":6" />

== Key features and notable works ==
Confessional writing is often non-fictive and delivered in direct, first-person narration. Confessional writing usually involves the divulging and discussion of 'shameful matters',<ref>Dolce, Joe. (1977). Dirty Laundry: The Art of Confessional Writing. Meanjin 76(4), 237–50.</ref> including personal secrets and controversial perspectives in forms such as autobiography, diary, memoir, and also epistolary narratives.<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/27929851|title=Epistolary Memory: Revisiting Traumas in Women's Writing / المراسلة والذاكرة: عود على الفجيعة في الكتابات ﺍﻟﻨﺴﺎﺋﻴﺔ|author1=El Hamamsy, Walid|author2=الحمامصي, وليد|year=2010|journal=Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics|issue=30|pages=150–175|jstor=27929851 }}</ref><ref name=":3" /> Confessional writing often involves emotions such as shame, fear of ostracism, social discomfort, and disorder;<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/23006458|title=Writing the Self|author=Garg, Mridula|year=2010|journal=India International Centre Quarterly|volume=37|issue=1|pages=92–100|jstor=23006458 }}</ref> as well as empowerment, self-expression, and liberation.<ref name=":10" />

[[File:Boston University Talbot Building 01.JPG|thumb|A building of the [[Boston University]] campus, a prominent institution during the early development of confessional writing.|left|185x185px]]
Owing to the religious connotations of confession, confessional writing is often invocative of religious imagery as reflective of sin and desire.<ref name=":9" /> The potential aims of confessional writing include the achievement of [[Closure (psychology)|closure]], [[catharsis]], and the representation of socially marginalised perspectives.<ref name=":5" /> Confessional Writing thus also may serve as a literary 'therapeutic outlet.'<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harris |first=Judith |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/56406335 |title=Signifying pain : constructing and healing the self through writing |date=2003 |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=1-4175-3603-9 |oclc=56406335}}</ref>

Robert Lowell's ''Life Studies'', an autobiographical suite of poems detailing Lowell's upbringing and personal family life, is often regarded as the seminal confessional work.<ref name=":9" /> Other important works of confessional writing include Sylvia Plath's ''[[The Bell Jar]]'', a ''[[roman à clef]]'' of Plath's descent into depression and suicide attempts while interning for [[Mademoiselle (magazine)|''Mademoiselle'']] magazine.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Claridge |first1=Gordon |title=Inside the Bell Jar |date=1990 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10499-4_10 |work=Sounds from the Bell Jar |pages=212–243 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-1-349-10501-4 |access-date=2022-05-11 |last2=Pryor |first2=Ruth |last3=Watkins |first3=Gwen|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-10499-4_10 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The novel blends elements of fiction and non-fiction within the parameters of the confessional genre, by representing real people and events through a fictive façade: ''Mademoiselle'' magazine is replaced with the fictional ''Ladies' Day'' magazine, and Plath's own experience is surrogated by the protagonist, Esther Greenwood's perspective. Plath also initially published the novel under the pseudonym, 'Victoria Lucas.'<ref>{{Citation |last=Brain |first=Tracy |title=Sylvia Plath and You |date=31 August 2019 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108556200.009 |work=Sylvia Plath in Context |pages=83–92 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/9781108556200.009 |isbn=9781108556200 |s2cid=201517383 |access-date=2022-05-11|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

More recent works of confessional writing include ''Codeine Diary,'' by [[Tom Andrews (poet)|Tom Andrews]], a personal account of living with the disease [[haemophilia]];<ref name=":1" /> ''Girlhood,'' by [[Melissa Febos]], an account of the development of the female body from adolescence into adulthood, and of the [[narrativity]] of the socially-constructed experience of femininity;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/10/arts/baring-it-all/|title=Baring it all – The Boston Globe|website=BostonGlobe.com}}</ref> [[Trick Mirror|''Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion'']] by ''[[Jia Tolentino]]''¸ a confessional blend of personal essay and social criticism concerning the rise of the internet during the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the fallacious digital identities which social media is productive of; ''[[Before I Say Goodbye]]'' by [[Ruth Picardie]], a memoir of her terminal illness with breast cancer;<ref name=":1" /> [[Bridget Jones's Diary (novel)|''Bridget Jone's Diary'']] by [[Helen Fielding]], a novel of the love life and entering of middle-age by the titular protagonist through the diary perspective;<ref name=":1" /> and ''White City Blue'' by [[Tim Lott]], a fictive account of the limits and stigmas of male friendship and in adulthood.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Andrea |last=Ochsner |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/931866061 |title=Lad Trouble Masculinity and Identity in the British Male Confessional Novel of the 1990s |date=2009 |publisher=transcript Verlag |isbn=978-3-8394-1161-2 |oclc=931866061}}</ref>

== Global influences and iterations ==
[[File:Robert-lowell-by-elsa-dorfman.jpg|thumb|A photograph of [[Robert Lowell]], a prominent and seminal confessional writer.|189x189px]]Though originating in American literary circles, the confessional writing style has gained global use with the growth of [[Postcolonialism|Postcolonial theory]] and [[Globalization|globalisation]] at the end of the 20th century,<ref name=":5" /> especially throughout [[Eurasia]] and the Middle East, with focuses on personal [[intersectionality]].<ref name=":6" /> Key ideas which global confessional writing explores include globalisation, cultural conflict, and the diasporic experience.<ref name=":11" /><ref name=":13" /><ref name=":14" />

''The Cry of Winnie Mandela'', a novel by [[Njabulo Ndebele]], incorporates stylistic features of the confessional writing genre, including first-person narration and the divulging of personal histories, to critique the [[Apartheid]] regime, and to represent the experiences of 'repression suffered by civilians and concealed by colonial occupying forces.<ref name=":1" />

''Sticky Rice Homoeroticism and Queer Politics'' by Shinsuke Eguchi blends [[Academic writing|academic]] and confessional writing to [[Autoethnography|autoethnographically]] critique and decolonise perceptions of homosexuality and internalised racism, combining academic elements of theory and criticism with literary and memoir-like representations of personal experience.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.peterlang.com/document/1145687|title=Asians Loving Asians|first=Shinsuke|last=Eguchi|editor-first1=Shinsuke |editor-last1=Eguchi |date=27 December 2021|via=www.peterlang.com|doi=10.3726/b17438|isbn=9781433183058 |s2cid=252829912 }}</ref>

[[Souvankham Thammavongsa]]'s poetic anthology ''Small Arguments'' uses features of confessional writing in a 'subtle probing of the world' to depict the refugee experience in Canada and concerns of [[self-determination]].<ref name=":14">Dawson, Carrie.(2017). 'Treaty to Tell the Truth': The Anti-Confessional Impulse in Canadian

Refugee Writing. Canadian Literature 234, 14–182.</ref>

''A Mountainous Journey'' by [[Fadwa Tuqan]] investigates the struggles of the Palestinian people, through a confessional, intimate perspective, to challenge the patriarchal and colonial hegemonies which problematise the endurance of her people, and the place of women in Islamic society.<ref name=":6" />

''[[Beirut Blues]]'' by [[Hanan al-Shaykh]] explores war-torn Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War, from the perspective of the young female narrator in confessional modes, including epistolary narratives.<ref name=":11" />

== Influences on other media ==
[[File:Alison Bechdel at Politics and Prose.jpg|thumb|Cartoonist and writer [[Alison Bechdel]], who merged confessional writing conventions with the [[graphic novel]] form.|left|209x209px]]Confessional writing features and styles have translated into and influenced other non-literary forms: especially in [[contemporary art]] through the use of prominent confessional features such as the divulsion of personal secrets and the presentation of intimate and sometimes scandalous details of the artist's private lives.<ref name=":16">{{Cite journal |last1=Juliff |first1=Toby |last2=Early |first2=Jaye |date=2 October 2019 |title=The self-design of contemporary confessional art |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702029.2019.1676994 |journal=Journal of Visual Art Practice |language=en |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=342–358 |doi=10.1080/14702029.2019.1676994 |s2cid=214539195 |issn=1470-2029}}</ref>

''[[My Bed]]'' is a confessional artwork by [[Tracey Emin]]: depicting a dishevelled bed stained with bodily secretions and surrounded by personal effects including empty vodka bottles, condoms, and menstrual-blood-stained undergarments. The artwork caused public outcry and controversy: employing features of the confessional style — including the presentation of intimate personal effects and socially taboo objects —in challenging the acceptable limits of personal and artistic representation.<ref>Sooke, Alastair. (2013) Tracey Emin – Dirty Sheets and All. The Telegraph.

archive.ph/20130421073607/www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturereviews/3557865/Tracey-

Emin—dirty-sheets-and-all.html.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Laura Lake |date=3 April 2017 |title=Telling stories: performing authenticity in the confessional art of Tracey Emin |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642529.2017.1298336 |journal=Rethinking History |language=en |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=296–309 |doi=10.1080/13642529.2017.1298336 |s2cid=151320066 |issn=1364-2529|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

French artist [[Louise Bourgeois]] also explored elements of confessional writing throughout her body of work, especially through representing her relationships with family members. Bourgeois' 1974 tableau ''The Destruction of the Father'' psychologically explored the artist's relationship to her father through biomorphic and phallic objects, presented in a crime-scene scenario – the implication being that the child has cannibalised their overbearing father.<ref>{{Cite web |title=THE LONDON LIST — Destruction of the Father |url=https://www.thelondonlist.com/culture/louise-bourgeois |access-date=2022-05-18 |website=THE LONDON LIST |date=3 January 2020 |language=en-US}}</ref> The spider motif throughout Bourgeois' art, including in the ''[[Maman (sculpture)|Maman]]'' sculpture series, alludes to Bourgeois' relationship to her mother, and the nourishment and protection it was productive of.<ref>{{Citation |title=Intention and Interpretation |date=20 October 2014 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315729909-6 |work=Introducing Philosophy of Art |pages=85–104 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9781315729909-6 |isbn=978-1-315-72990-9 |access-date=2022-05-18}}</ref>

Candy Cheng's art installation ''Confessions,'' which has been exhibited across America, Central and Eastern Europe, invited viewers and members of the public to write anonymous confessions onto a wooden board and hang their confession on the work itself, with emphasis on features typical to the confessional writing genre including the catharsis of the act of confession, and the desire to reveal secrets.<ref>Hosmer, Katie. (2012). Exposing Thousands of Anonymous Confessions. My Modern Met,

www.mymodernmet.com/candy-chang-confessions/.</ref>

''[[Fun Home]]'' and ''[[Are You My Mother? (memoir)|Are You My Mother?]]'' are both memoirs by American [[cartoonist]] [[Alison Bechdel]], which incorporate features of confessional writing through the [[graphic novel]] medium.

Academics have also expounded on the self-performativity and confession-based format of reality television shows such as [[Big Brother (franchise)|''Big Brother'']] as having roots in the confessional writing genre.<ref name=":7" /> Critics have likewise highlighted the ubiquity of confessional 'self-disclosure'<ref name=":15" /><ref name=":16"/> in the public domains of social media and the internet, and how twenty-first century technologies are supplanting the traditional distinctions between an individual's public life and private self.<ref name=":16" /><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-97607-5 |title=Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media |date=2018 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-319-97606-8 |editor-last=Dobson |editor-first=Amy Shields |series=Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change |location=Cham |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-97607-5 |editor-last2=Robards |editor-first2=Brady |editor-last3=Carah |editor-first3=Nicholas}}</ref>

== Criticisms of the confessional writing genre ==
[[File:Michel Foucault 1974 Brasil.jpg|thumb|[[Michel Foucault]] in 1974. Foucault theorised on confession as an oppressive, hegemonic condition]]
A highly influential movement, confessional writing has been critiqued as narcissistic, self-indulgent, as well as a violation of the privacy of the private individuals which confessional writers depict.<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":12" /> Owing to the exclusively heterosexual and upper-class<ref name=":0" /> [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestants|White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism]] which characterises many of the early confessional writers, such as Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, the mode has been critiqued as solipsistic, 'classist, self assured, and elusive,'<ref>{{Citation |last=Spiegelman |first=Willard |title=The Achievement of Robert Lowell (2005) |date=29 December 2008 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368130.003.0018 |work=Imaginative Transcripts |pages=254–284 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368130.003.0018 |isbn=978-0-19-536813-0 |access-date=2022-05-18|url-access=subscription }}</ref> as well as lacking diverse social and cultural perspectives.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bonasera |first=Carmen |date=9 July 2021 |title=Bodies and self-disclosure in American female confessional poetry |url=https://ejlw.eu/article/view/37638 |journal=European Journal of Life Writing |volume=10 |pages=SV33–SV56 |doi=10.21827/ejlw.10.37638 |s2cid=237833276 |issn=2211-243X|hdl=11585/917652 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Further, theorist Michel Foucault explicated that confession, as an act inherent to the social structures of law, medicine, and faith, is a consolidated act of social oppression: confining subjects within traditional hegemonies of shame, guilt, and socially-constructed requirements of forgiveness.<ref>  Bloom, Myra D. Textual Transgressions: Confessional Discourse in Late Twentieth-Century Canadian and Québécois Writing. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2014.</ref>

Feminist discourse is separated on the mode: whilst some theorists regard the depiction of issues such as sexual violence, eating disorders, and mental illness by female confessional writers as liberating, others view it as voyeuristic and objectifying.<ref name=":3" />

The [[New Formalism]] school of writing, a movement of the late 20th century which emphasised returns to formulaic and strictly metrical poetry, was formed in direct response to the dominance of confessional styles of poetry which were characterised by unfixed structures and [[free verse]], forms denigrated by the school as lacking finesse and craft.<ref name=":15">{{Cite journal|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/what-is-new-formalism/919834980EDD67DB74EB883A522B8A01|title=What Is New Formalism?|first=Marjorie|last=Levinson|date=16 March 2007|journal=PMLA|volume=122|issue=2|pages=558–569|via=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1632/pmla.2007.122.2.558|s2cid=6452197 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Jamison |first1=Leslie |last2=McGrath |first2=Charles |date=29 September 2015 |title=In the Age of Memoir, What's the Legacy of the Confessional Mode? |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/in-the-age-of-memoir-whats-the-legacy-of-the-confessional-mode.html |access-date=2022-05-18 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Confessional poetry]]
* [[Life writing]]
* [[Robert Lowell]]
* [[Postmodernism]]

== References ==
<references />

[[Category:Writing]]