Confessionalism in Disability Poetry and Poetry of Madness

Résumé ou Introduction

There has always been a strong connection between the disabled, the depressed, criminals and the sexually differently oriented in literature. It would therefore be interesting to prove that the disability poem by Sheila Black, "What You Mourn", and the poem dealing with madness by Anne Sexton, "Her Kind", consult Confessionalism.

It will also be considered which stylistic devices are used to express parts of their purportedly real life. A comparison will try to establish whether differences between the two poems regarding Confessionalism exist and how they could be explained.

The term "disability" has only existed, since the definition of the "norm" has been established. This definition became popular in 1855, containing the idea of a perfect, godlike and ideal body, which fits the physical average. With the popularization of statistics in the 1830s, examinations of the human body increased, assuming that a body is only norma, if it does not fall victim to the extremes of a bell curve.

Since such a definition of the norm has arisen, the concept of the disabled body has been created. All extremes were perceived as disadvantages and rejected, and therefore, disabled people, alcoholics, depressed or homosexuals were considered abnormal. Since all of them showed in some way an abnormality, they were simply regarded as "the disease of the nation".

This was mainly the idea of the so called "eugenics", a theoretical concept which aims to reduce negative hereditary factors.
Therefore, for a very long time, disability was treated as a taboo subject. Although it was mentioned in novels, in the end, the disability would always be gotten rid of because it implied imperfection. This changed through the emergence of the so called Confessionalism.