May Sarton wrote 53 books, including 19 novels, 17 books of poetry, 15 nonfiction works, 2 children's books, a play, and additional screenplays. According to
The Poetry Foundation, Sarton's style as defined by critics is "calm, cultured, and urbane." Rather she wanted to touch on what is universally human about love in all its manifestations. When publishing her novel
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing in 1965, Sarton feared that writing openly about
lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously established value of her work. "The fear of
homosexuality is so great that it took courage to write
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing," she wrote in
Journal of a Solitude, "to write a novel about a woman homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive, to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiable nor disgusting, without sentimentality ..." After the book's release, many of Sarton's works began to be studied in university level
women's studies classes, being embraced by
feminists and lesbians alike. However, some scholars argue that while Sarton paints a "sympathetic" view of aging in her writing, she felt conflicted about her own aging process because of the effects of several illnesses, which is reflected in her journals. Due to her interest in aging, Sarton's writing has directly impacted the development of literary age studies. Her novel
As We Are Now served as inspiration for Barbara Frey Waxman's coining of the literary genre "Reifungsroman" that focuses on "ripening toward death"; this serves as a spin-off of the typical Bildungsroman to focus on the development of older protagonists rather than younger protagonists.
Margot Peters'
authorized biography (1998) revealed May Sarton as a complex individual who often struggled in her relationships. Peters' book was often scathing ("People who had the misfortune to become her intimates almost universally came to regret it. On the slightest of pretexts, Ms. Peters has it, Sarton subjected them to 'terrible scenes, nights of weeping, rages, blowups.' She was expert at emotional blackmail, and behaved badly in restaurants. Self-absorbed and insensitive, May Sarton wooed others with extravagant attentions, only to betray and humiliate them later -- 'with scant regard,' Ms. Peters observes, 'for the chaos left in her wake.'"), but the biography was considered "thoughtful, even-handed, [and] well-written." A selected edition of Sarton's letters was edited by
Susan Sherman in 1997 and many of Sarton's papers are held in the
New York Public Library. ==Bibliography==