An Analysis Of Robert Lowell's For The Union Dead

Post World War II Poets slip into the booth and bare their souls using varying degrees of confession, producing poetry that contains raw, auto-biographical information; or observational poems that simply skim the surface of a writer's experience. Ranging from the realistic perfectionist to the poet who bore her soul into death, the confessional poetry era runs the gambit of personal emotions. Listening to a poet's writing can expose the level of personal intimacy they are willing to bare, and establish a hierarchy with which to compare.

Stepping into our confessional booth first, is the tight lipped poet Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop is not entirely a confessional poet, as she tends to remain obscure within her poems, writing instead about

In his poem "For the Union Dead," Lowell expresses his potent view toward the death and memorial of a distant relative, Colonel Shaw in: "the old white churches hold their air / of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags."(43) He firmly believes in equal civil rights and plugs: "the drained faces of Negro school children rise like balloons," (60) which is a picture of desegregation in Southern schools. Lowell has a history of loneliness and depression and this is apparent in "The Skunk Hour," which clearly portrays the emptiness he felt in life: "I myself am hell; / nobody's here." (35) Lowell is a parallel to the speaker who has lived in this seaside town year round, but relatively has no connection with other people, save the skunks that raid his trash can: “and will not scare.”

Plath is very good at baring her emotions, and holds nothing back when she writes “Daddy,” a poem reflecting the anger she directed at both her father and her husband. She uses references to torture when describing the relationship with both of these men: “And a love of the rack and screw / And I said I do, I do / So daddy, I’m finally through.” (68) The pain that she feels is evident, as well as her wish to be permanently disengaged: “If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two.” (71) The epitome of confession lies in “Lady Lazarus,” with Plath holding nothing back emotionally in her writing, she is an open book for all to read. When Plath was ten years old, she almost died accidentally, and again at age twenty when she tried to commit suicide. Consumed with the thought of death Plath’s work reflects her dark side: “Dying / Is an art, like everything else / I do it exceptionally well.” (45) She believes that she was raised from the dead and: “like the cat I have nine times to die.” (20) She is a tortured soul and uses the Holocaust and Nazi Germany references in her writing to portray how she feels about living: “A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade.” (5) Plath kills herself one year after this poem is written in 1963. It was to be her suicide note to the world, ironically foretelling her demise: “I have