'The little white dish of my faith': Anne Sexton, the body, and spirituality

This thesis examines how Anne Sexton pits the body and soul against one another in her poems. Her work suggests that these two facets of being are more than just benignly and fundamentally different: they are enemies. Her speaker continually vilifies the body by suggesting that its superficial needs obstruct the more wholesome and essential needs of the spirit. The thesis demonstrates that spirituality is the most resilient theme in Sexton's work and argues against critics who claim that the body is Sexton's central preoccupation.