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@article{190273,
        author = {Sadiya Sarkar and Dr. Avneet Kaur},
        title = {From Verse to Voice: A Comparative Study of Anne Sexton and Contemporary Songwriting},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {8},
        pages = {8250-8256},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=190273},
        abstract = {As a poetic device and a need that is psychological, confession has played a long role in human behavior. The paper at hand discusses the psychoanalytic origins of the confessional expression in terms of a comparative analysis between the poems by Anne Sexton and the songwriting by Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. Based on Freudian psychoanalytic theory and feminist revisions of repression, the paper claims that confession is a very form of sublimation whereby unconscious guilt and anxiety and suicidal thoughts are converted into aesthetic expression. The poetry of Sexton expresses the death drive and split feminine psyche in explicit and confrontational terms, whereas Swift and Eilish transform the exact same psychic materials into restrained and introspective lyrics by the influence of celebrity culture and digital presence. Though the medium, tone, and audience are different, all the three artists perform the so-called talking cure by Freud, as they transform silence into verbal expression and personal pain into mass sympathy. This paper uses close analysis in both textual and lyrical reading of the substitutive power of songs and perspectives of lyrical and emotional commitment to reveal the role of modern song lyrics in maintaining the psychological work and concentration of the confessional tradition and their role as lawful offshoots of the conceptual process. Placing songwriting and poetry into the context of psychoanalysis, the study questions the hierarchical difference between literary and popular texts and asserts confession as a prolonged human reaction with repression, guilt and emotional survival.},
        keywords = {Confessional Poetry, Psychoanalysis, Anne Sexton, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Mental Health, Sublimation.},
        month = {January},
        }