Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies ›› 2015, Vol. 15 ›› Issue (3): 57-62.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2015.03.011

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The Form and Significance of Anxiety: Psychoanalysis of Sylvia Plath’s Poetry of Confession

ZENG Wei   

  • Published:2020-07-25

Abstract: Sylvia Plath’s poetry of confession, written during the late stage of her life, exhibits the feeling of agony and despair experienced in her everyday life. The essay is built on the belief that her most representative confessional poems are a product of anxiety: anxiety is both the source of poetic creativity and the subject matter of composition. The anxiety in her poetry could be classified into four levels: realistic anxiety, neurotic anxiety, moral anxiety and the anxiety of influence. Through analyzing the interplay of the four levels of anxiety, the essay intends to explain the origin of her creativity and the aesthetic value of her poetry.

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