Anne Sexton

Jo Gill (University of Glasgow)

Ed. by Nick Selby, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 9 Nov 1928
Died 4 Oct 1974
Activity 1960-1974

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Poet

Other

Letter-writer/ Diarist
Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Sexton's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Anne Sexton (1928 to 1974) has been labelled the “mother” and the “high priestess” of the confessional mode of poetry that dominated 1960s American culture (George 90; Phillips 6). In her own lifetime, she won considerable acclaim for her numerous volumes of poetry including her first book,

To Bedlam and Part Way Back

(1960), her second,

All My Pretty Ones

(1962), the Pulitzer-Prize winning

Live Or Die

(1966), and her 1971 reworking of Grimms’ fairytales,

Transformations

. She maintained a punishing schedule of talks and poetry readings across the United States, wrote the play

Mercy Street

which ran off-Broadway for almost two months in 1969, held teaching positions at Colgate University and Boston University, was awarded a fellowship by Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute…

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2663 words

Citation: Gill, Jo. "Anne Sexton". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4030, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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