Infidelity and Confession: Sexton's "For My Lover, Returning To His Wife"

Anne Sexton's "For My Lover, Returning To His Wife" is one of the most remarkable poems in the AQA Post-1900 Anthology. It confronts adultery, jealousy, self-knowledge, and the relationship between art and life with a rawness that still has the power to shock. The poem belongs to the Confessional tradition in American poetry — a movement that deliberately broke the taboos separating public art from private experience.

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Context (AO3)

Confessional Poetry

The term "confessional poetry" was coined by the critic M.L. Rosenthal in 1959 to describe the work of Robert Lowell, particularly his collection Life Studies. The confessional poets — Lowell, Sexton, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman — wrote explicitly about subjects that had previously been considered too private, too shameful, or too psychologically disturbing for poetry: mental illness, sexuality, family dysfunction, suicide, addiction.