Anne Sexton: A Biography (Vintage): Amazon.de: Diane Middlebrook: Englische Bücher

Taschenbuch: 528 Seiten
Verlag: Vintage; Auflage: Vintage Books. (27. Oktober 1992)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN-10: 0679741828
ISBN-13: 978-0679741824
Gr��e und/oder Gewicht: 13,1 x 2,7 x 20,3 cm

Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 3.3 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (7 Kundenrezensionen)

Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 436.111 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)

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From Kirkus Reviews

Frustrated as a housewife and mother in suburban Boston and plagued by mental problems including suicidal obsessions, Sexton, beautiful, intense, and gifted, began writing poetry at age 29 on the advice of her therapist. Within ten years she had won nearly every prize available to an American poet--and collected hundred of hours of tapes from her therapy sessions. Access to these tapes and the intimate revelations of Sexton's family have enabled Middlebrook (English/Stanford; Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens, 1974) to explore here some of the dynamics of creativity, and the relationship between art and mental disorder. Artful, oblique, confessional, Sexton's verse, as Middlebrook shows, is representative of her generation of emotionally distraught poets, nearly all addicted to booze, pills, sex, and to themselves: Anguished, broken, many ended up suicides. Robert Lowell, Roethke, Schwartz, Bishop, Rahv, Berryman, Rich, Jarrell, James Wright, Anthony Hecht, George Starbuck--they were a community of pain, friends or lovers, meeting at workshops, readings, or retreats. Their poetry is private, academic, and written to one another: Sexton wrote some of the best. But however much recognition Sexton received as a poet, her personal life remained at the edge, as the title of her first collection implies: To Bedlam and Partway Back (1960). And everyone was forced to share that space with her: Her husband adored, mothered, and finally beat her; her daughters, emotionally abandoned, finally rejected her, one confessing that her mother tried to seduce her; and her lovers- -men, women, even her therapist--were unable to fulfill her demands. Before she finally succeeded in committing suicide, however, she claimed she had ``lived to the hilt.'' Middlebrook is better at explicating the poems than she is at explaining the life. That remains, in spite of the tapes, a mystery, one of universal interest relevant to the large issues of poetry, madness, and suicide, but only tangentially related to the feminist thesis that Middlebrook prefers to associate with Sexton: a typical victim, she says, of society's repression of women. (Twenty-four b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Library Journal

In this rich and enthralling biography of American confessional poet Sexton, Middlebrook (English, Stanford) approaches Sexton's life and work with a masterful balance of objectivity and empathy, weaving a compulsively readable tale of Sexton's transformation from housewife to award-winning poet while she battled severe mental illness. Middlebrook's analysis of the relationship of Sexton's illness to her art is rendered more immediate and more powerful by her skillful use of tapes of Sexton's psychotherapy sessions. Avoiding literary and psychoanalytical jargon, Middlebrook judiciously assesses Sexton's work and describes the familial, psychological, and sociological determinants of Sexton's illness, which finally drove her to suicide in 1974. Highly recommended for research collections in literature and women's studies, for collections in psychiatry, and for general readers, even if it were not the only biography of Sexton available. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/91.
- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib., Cambridge
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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Einleitungssatz
ANNE SEXTON BEGAN writing poetry as a teenager, like many of us, then stopped, like most of us. Lesen Sie die erste Seite

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1 von 1 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Fascinating topic, disappointing execution 30. Januar 1999

Von Ein Kunde

Format:Taschenbuch

It's a shame that this book was not written by someone who had the ability to access the intense feelings and pathos that ruled Anne Sexton's life. What was needed here were in-depth insights, an emotional full-color panorama of one of the century's most intriguing famous people, the unfolding of the many emotional dichotomies that operated within Sexton.

Instead, this biography is nothing more than 488 pages of sterile commentaries of the woman's life and heady, highly technical reviews of her work. Middlebrook merely grazes the tragedies and disappointments in Sexton's life -- many so universal. If Middlebrook does have an emotional observation about her subject, she well and erroneously hides it. I particularly took issue with Middlebrook's superficial discussion of the abuses Sexton underwent as a child and then perpetrated on her own children, especially the eldest.

I am not suggesting that Sexton, a child abuser, should have been presented as a pitiful creature, someone who should be glorified and admired, no holds barred. One of the book's basic flaws was the absence of separating Sexton, the person, from Sexton's poetry. As beautiful and haunting as her poems are, Sexton herself was a selfish, cruel woman who, despite every privilege and opportunity presented to her, was so self-absorbed that she cared nothing for her two most miraculous creations, her daughters, except how she could creatively and psychologically benefit from having children. Like they were her little science experiments, discarded at the slightest whim. That so aptly exemplified the driving force behind this woman, that it is a shame it was never presented in human terms.

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Psychiatrist overstepped; did it help? 17. Juni 2000

Von Ejames LIEBERMAN

Patient records are privileged; Dr. Orne justifies releasing tapes of Anne Sexton's therapy because the daughter of A.S. approved. He wrote the preface to the book, displaying a rather passive attitude to the malfeasance of the therapist who slept with A.S. And does the end--understanding creativity/a poet's life and death--justify the means? Do outpourings in therapy tell readers about where creativity comes from, how it is shaped, the interplay of life and art? I doubt it. People "edit" their therapy talk, too, though differently from their public utterings. Readers may be seduced by these secrets, hoping to find answers that cannot be given, even--maybe especially--by therapists. I think the biographer overplays her hand, and might have done a better book without the controversial tapes.

A psychoanalytic assessment of Sexton. 22. Mai 2000

Von hermione31

This novel utilizes records from the thousands of hours of therapy Sexton underwent (most notably with Dr. Martin Orne). As a result of this, the slant of this biography is more psychological than previous books. It is scrupulously detailed though, which is a real treat for those who want to know what her life was on a micro-level. It is fascinating to read the excerpts of her therapy sessions and then be able to relate her actions to her psychological state of mind and see how all of it influenced her poetry.

This is not a particularly literary biography - so if you are a PhD in Literature, it probably won't add anything to your understanding of Sexton's use of meter or rhyme schemes. It rigorously follows the events of her life but does not spend much time on her formative years. However, the scope and depth of Middlebrook's psychological research is wonderful, and someone who appreciates both psychology and literature will enjoy this book immeasureably.