The Last Puritans: Confessional Poetics in the New England Gothic

This paper proposes that the confessional mode has a place within the evolving genre of the New England Gothic, an assertion that within the scope of this project focuses primarily on the work of Anne Sexton as an example of the convergence of the New England confessional poets and the New England Gothic. Moving from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter to Anne Sexton’s poem “The Double Image,” this paper evaluates the status of hereditary guilt, secrets, social critique, and madness within the framework of the New England Gothic and in doing so, situates the confessional mode within that framework. It combines religious, historical, feminist, and psychological methodologies to define the New England Gothic and bring The Scarlet Letter and “The Double Image” in conversation with one another. Combining elements from texts by Ringel, Mogart, Carruth, and Dreyer, this project seeks to present a more comprehensive definition of the New England Gothic, one which has room for and is elevated by the confessional mode.