When referencing great American poets, there is no doubt that Anne Sexton’s name will be brought up. The twentieth century Boston native is known for her confessional verses and lack of fear when it came to addressing topics such as female sexuality. Much of her more famous poetry possesses darker tones, as Sexton grappled with depression and other mental illnesses throughout her life, but she also published other genres of poetry, as well as a play. Due to the prestige Sexton collected over her lifetime, many have written about her and her work, creating a certain image of her in the media. This prevailing image revolves strongly around discussions about Sexton’s mental health, and controversy with her therapist that occured after her suicide. …show more content…
The shared tendency of glossing over the trauma experienced at a young age in connection to what kind of adult she grew up to be not only is an ignorant approach to talking about mental health, but also does not give Sexton the just credit she deserves as a person and a writer. Despite there being an abundance of information available on Anne Sexton, the majority of existing media obsesses over her mental health, thereby disregarding who she was as a person, and creating an impression devoid of creativity or emotion. The clear unbalance in the ratio of Sexton’s battle with depression versus addressing all other aspects of her life is a dominating theme in Sexton’s representation that overshadows the other significant details of her life. When searching Anne Sexton’s name, multiple general knowledge sources come up, one being an entry for her in the online version of The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. The text claims to be an …show more content…
The previously referenced article in The Boston Globe was published before both Society articles and the Oxford entry. In it are qualities about Sexton that are not found anywhere else. The major reason why that is so is because the article contains a fair amount of input from Sexton’s close friend, Maxine Kumin. Kay Bartlett, the author of the article, was doing their job as a reporter to get the inside information and make it public. Although academic journals and newspapers are different kinds of sources, in that newspapers are geared for the generally public’s consumption, and journals are more often for other experts in a certain field, they both require an apt amount of research to ensure that what is being written about is based in truth. Society claims to be an academic journal that “furthers the understanding and use of social sciences through significant research, informative commentaries and the analyses of controversial problems in American society”, yet both Lewin’s and Roazen’s works seem to be based only on their interpretations of Diane Middlebrook’s biography on Sexton, and their own speculations. Scholarly, peer-reviewed texts such as these are what tend to help