Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift: Feminist Confessional Poetry

I recently began a class at USC called “Introduction to Feminist Theory,” and I was reminded of an essay I wrote last year, at AUP, after reading Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.” I was intrigued by an article from Independent UK (linked here if you are interested) that discussed the similarities between Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift, as, to put it frankly, feminist icons of their respective time periods. I decided it would be fun to share my essay, for anyone who may be interested! It is by far one of my favorites that I have written and am so excited to use this feminism course to dive deeper into this discourse.

Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift: Feminist Confessional Poetry

            Sylvia Plath was a lyrical poet, painting pictures and and writing songs with her words as much as she did stories. Taylor Swift is a storytelling lyricist, painting pictures and writing stories with her songwriting. One represented the Second wave of American feminism, while the other is at the forefront of the Fourth. Both of their work is deeply confessional, often portraying more negative aspects of themselves that others would keep buried. For the purpose of comparison, Swift’s lyrics will be analyzed as a written work and disregard the musical elements of her pieces for the sake of simplicity in literary mediums. This essay will explore the genre of confessional poetry, the Second wave of feminism and Plath, the Fourth wave of feminism and Swift, and both Plath and Swift’s arcs to becoming icons of their respective eras as ‘good girls gone bad.’

            Gathering momentum in the 1950’s in North America, confessional poetry arose as a predominantly female mode. Deeply personal, “any taboo experiences were outspoke, because there was no reason to leave them undiscussed in this highly open and honest form of poetry” (Goedhart 12). Poets used this method to heal their traumas through artistic articulation, attempting to find themselves through examining their lives on paper. The poems become autobiographical, as the author is “searching for herself, for away to define herself” (Goedhart 12). Confessional poetry embodies vulnerability, a prominent aspect of Plath’s work, notably throughout Ariel as she explores herself through prose. The confessional poet finds that there is “not just one self, but two (or more).” There is the first self, which is most often the self that the world sees, and the second self is “associated with the often-unknown side of a woman. Her creative self, her furious self, her anxious self” (Goedhart 12). The second self is supernatural, and Plath is renowned for rejecting the first self, which is clearly present in The Bell Jar, and focusing on the second, more personal self. This is because Plath was focused on exploring her personal experiences through creative writing and using it as a method of feeling analysis, and as opposed to merely telling her readers about these feelings and experiences the confessional female poet brings her reader with her on her path to self discovery. However, “the confessional female poet uses names as ‘symbolic motifs, as mythic ideas’” (Goedhart 13) which some critics believe creates a lack of reality in Plath’s work, but adds to the idea that female confessional poetry is its own genre entirely. The female poet strives for “‘self knowledge,’” and peripheral figures are not to be the focus of these pieces. The 1950’s saw a spike in these female confessional poets, due in part to the dawning of the Second Wave of American feminism.

            This Second Wave of feminism accompanied the vigorous establishment of the ideal of the American housewife after the second World War. The suffocation imposed by the patriarchy produced a plethora of feminist writers and poets, including Sylvia Plath. This generation of writer used the housewife and household objects as important literary themes, and this “feminine realism” was “a phenomenon peculiar to American women poets, who…have never hesitated to use domestic objects in their poetry” (Seifert 1). This is where the coined term ‘domestic madness’ originated; female poets used ordinary objects that were symbolic of domesticity as metaphors for their despair within the patriarchal system where they had been reduced to simple housewives. In the creative endeavors of the women of the Second Wave, “two forms of domestic madness are discernible—a psychological anxiety manifested in despair, isolation, and anger… and fantasy, in which madness is controlled by transforming and/or manipulating household objects and situations” (Seifert 3). Plath acted in the former, where physical symbols of domesticity came to represent madness, physical, and mental suffering. In the 1961 poem Lesbos, “the baby and the clean floor are not only images of respectively creative and useless work, the roles of mother and housewife, but also are symbols of torture and madness” (Seifert 3). The pain and despair illustrated by Plath and her contemporaries serve to represent a defiance to the system, aiding in the feminist movements of the Second Wave. The housewife became a symbol of domestic madness, and Plath “experiences these issues and defines them in ‘patriarchal language’ which was popular among the feminists in the 1960s in America” (Goedhart 14). Feminism in the 1960s served to break women out of these stereotypical domestic roles, and feminist writers like Sylvia Plath and their success showed women of the time how they can be something else, and they do not have to follow the path laid for them by society.

            Feminism began its revival for the Fourth Wave in the 2010s, half a century after the beginning of Second Wave Feminism. While it still represented the same values of tackling misogyny and toppling the patriarchy, feminists now had a new method of mass organization: The internet. During the Fourth Wave, “varying digital platforms, like Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, now allow women to build a ‘strong, popular, reactive movement online’” (Goedhart 15). International communities were now easily accessible, and more women were reachable to grow the movement in comparison to the 1960s. With the #MeToo movement founded in 2006, feminism also had a new motive: exposing sexual assault and inequality in the workplace. Celebrities joined the feminist movement, speaking up on gender inequality in their industries. A notable example is Taylor Swift. Beginning as a fifteen year old country music star in 2003, she has since grown exponentially in popularity. With this growing visibility, she released albums Reputation, Lover, folklore, evermore, and Midnights which “all present a more outspoken Swift, one who prides herself in not being afraid to the inequality in the music industry” (Goedhart 16). Using her lyrics, she taunts the patriarchy similarly to Plath. Also in the 2010s, she spoke out regarding her own sexual assault case. She countersued her attacker for “just one dollar” to make a point about the inequality in her case (Goedhart 16). With her level of celebrity, her point made waves in the wake of the #MeToo movement. While Second Wave feminists were determined to break through the bonds of traditional gender roles, Fourth Wave feminists work mainly to expose workplace inequality and sexual assault. Without Plath and the Second Wave, Swift and Fourth Wave feminists would not have a platform to stand on.

            It is undeniable that both women are iconic feminists, and their linguistic and lyrical evolutions from  ‘all-American blondes’ to ‘good girls gone bad’ is their feminist manifesto. Both of their works appeal to a similar audience of teenage girls, likely because young women can see themselves reflected in the words of Plath’s poems and Swift’s songs. Perhaps Plath’s work are “some kind of short-hand for (and glamorization of) teenage depression and self-destruction” (Greenberg and Klaver 181). This aspect of adolescent depression is also visible in Swift’s works, though usually directed towards a heartbreak. Both of their use of the confessional mode of writing exposes these “intensely private experiences…laid starkly bare and made public in a song, ready to be consumed by the public” (Luu 6). Their depression and rage that they share are part of their appeal, especially evident in Plath’s Ariel collection and Swift’s later albums, notably Reputation and Midnights. A prime example of both of their attitudes toward men in their feminist eras is demonstrated in “Lady Lazarus” (2019) and “Vigilante Shit” (2022). The line “And I eat men like air” (Plath 17) is directly comparable to the first line in Swift’s song, “I draw a cat eye sharp enough to kill a man” (Swift 1). Violent and aggressive, they are two women who are standing up for themselves and will not ‘sit still and look pretty’ any longer. This attitude is the product of a transformation that both women undergo. In “Lady Lazarus,” the speaker rises out of the ashes like a phoenix as “a monster who wants to ‘eat men’” (Greenberg and Klaver 193). In the song “Look What You Made Me Do” (2017) by Swift, she emphasizes the fact that the ‘Old Taylor’ is dead. This is a transformation that is inspiring to teenage girls, who can resonate with the women attempting to break out of the bonds of the patriarchy and become powerful feminists. Rebirth “is associated with hope,” a feeling that both Plath’s Ariel and Swift’s later albums resonate; hope in the feminist movement and the future of women (Greenberg and Klaver 193). Young women are attracted to Swift and Plath because of their “portrayal of a girl with a voice, who could express whatever she was feeling” (Greenberg and Klaver 186). Teenage girls can relate to both Plath and Swift, respectively, and “perhaps the greatest thing poetry could do for teenage girls, then, is let them know that they’re not alone” (Greenberg and Klaver 195). Plath and Swift definitely help their respective readers and listeners feel as though they are not alone, and teenage girls can find solace in the anguish and perseverance present in both of their work. Both women grew into their voices, and their progress to becoming these icons of their respective feminist movements can be tracked along their works, with the most recent being the most brazen, speaking louder and harsher against the patriarchy than before. They transformed from the ‘all-American blonde’ to ‘good girls gone bad’ to become icons of the feminist movements and inspiration for young women.

            In closing, the comparison between the similarities of Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift can delve much deeper than was explored in this essay, however the most important similarity between their respective ‘rebirths’ has been highlighted. They both serve as models for the Second and Fourth Waves of feminism, and role models for adolescent girls who struggle with a sense of belonging. It is also highlighted how they both are confessional writers, writing about deeply personal subjects to be shared with the public because their experiences with mental illness, heartbreak, and sexism are universally felt by women everywhere. Their works help young women feel less alone in a world dominated by the patriarchy.

Works Cited

Greenberg, Arielle and Klaver, Becca. “Mad Girls’ Love Songs: Two Women Poets—A Professor and Graduate Student—Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and the Poetics of Female Adolescence.” The Johns Hopkins University Press Vol. 36, No. 4 (Fall, 2009), pp. 179-207. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20642061.

Goedhart, Annabel. “Plath and Swift: The Feminist Confessional Lyric of Two ‘Ladies Lazarus.’” Utrecht University, 2021, https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/40301.

Luu, Chi. “The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift.” Jstor Daily 2020. https://daily.jstor.org/the-linguistic-evolution-of-taylor-swift/.

Plath, Sylvia. “Lady Lazarus.” Ariel, Faber and Faber, 2019.

Seifert, Carolyn J. “Images of Domestic Madness in the Art and Poetry of American Women.”

Woman’s Art Journal Vol. 1, No. 2 (Autumn, 1980 – Winter, 1981), pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.2307/1358076.

Swift, Taylor. “Look What You Made Me Do.” Reputation, Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift 2017, https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-look-what-you-made-me-do-lyrics.

Swift, Taylor. “Vigilante Shit.” Midnights, Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift 2022, https://genius.com/Taylor-Swift-vigilante-shit-lyrics.