Sarah-Jane Burton

The Australian National University, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Post-Doc

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I am a scholar of 20th century American literature, specializing in poetry and the literary and cultural history of Boston and greater New England. I am particularly interested in writing groups and institutions and my PhD dissertation explored Robert Lowell's Boston University workshop with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. My current project is a history of the New England Poetry Club, established in 1915 by Robert Frost and Amy Lowell. This research has been funded by Houghton Library, Harvard University and The Australian National University. I currently serve as the Official Historian for the still extant New England Poetry Club.

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Papers by Sarah-Jane Burton

An Introduction to "The Boston Trio": Sylvia Plath with Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton

Plath Profiles an Interdisciplinary Journal For Sylvia Plath Studies, Jul 1, 2013

In an interview with A. Alvarez for The Observer in 1963, the poet Robert Lowell asserted, "Inspi... more In an interview with A. Alvarez for The Observer in 1963, the poet Robert Lowell asserted, "Inspiration's such a tricky word…we all know poetry isn't a craft that you can just turn on and off. It has to strike fire somewhere" (76). The question of the location of this elusive "somewhere"-this inspirational moment in the trajectory of Sylvia Plath's career is one of the main concerns of this paper. This pivotal moment and literary shift is often cited as occurring late in Plath's life, with motherhood and the break-up of her marriage to Ted Hughes providing the fuel for the powerful work of Ariel. However, several years earlier, in early 1959, Plath briefly audited a poetry class taught by the revered American poet Robert Lowell at Boston University. It was here, alongside fellow poet Anne Sexton, that Plath gained new perspective regarding her work and her own position in the emerging currents of American poetry. Plath would later describe the developments occurring at the time in a 1963 radio broadcast, saying of Lowell: "the shift in tone is already history" (Plath, The Spoken Word

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‘Structures of Influence’: the Boston Trio – Lowell, Plath and Sexton

An introduction to "The Boston Trio": Sylvia Plath with Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton.

Plath Profiles 6, Summer 2013, May 2013