Robert Lowell

Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917–September 12, 1977), born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr., was an American poet whose works, confessional in nature, engaged with the questions of history and probed the dark recesses of the self. He is generally considered to be among the greatest American poets of the twentieth century.

Life

Lowell was born into the Boston Brahmin Lowell family that included Amy Lowell and James Russell Lowell. He attended Harvard University but transferred to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, from where he graduated, to study under the great American critic, John Crowe Ransom. He was a Roman Catholic from 1940 to 1946. His Catholicism influenced his first two books, Land of Unlikeness (1944) and Lord Weary's Castle (1946). Because of Allied bombings of civilians, he was a conscientious objector during World War II, for which he served several months in jail (depicted in Memories of West Street and Lepke). He was married to novelist Jean Stafford (1915-1979) from 1940 to 1948[1]. In 1949 he married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick, with whom he spent several years in Europe.

In the 1960s, he became a media personality, befriending such celebrities as Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy, Mary McCarthy, Father Berrigan and Eugene McCarthy. He was also actively protesting against the Vietnam War.

Lowell was hospitalized approximately 20 times for acute mania, underwent shock therapy, and characterized one of his manic episodes as a "magical orange grove in a nightmare." However it would be wrong to characterize Lowell as a "mad" poet, since these were generally episodes that were interruptions to his work, rather than the reasons for his work.

In 1970 he left Elizabeth Hardwick for the British author, Lady Caroline Blackwood. He spent much of his last years in England. Lowell died in 1977, suffering a heart attack in a cab in New York City, and is buried in Stark Cemetery, Dunbarton Center, New Hampshire.

His collected works were published in 2003 and his letters in 2005, indicating a renewed interest in the poet.

Writing

Lowell reached wide acclaim for his 1946 book, Lord Weary's Castle, a reworking of his first book, Land of Unlikeness. Among the most famous poems in the volume are Mr Edwards and the Spider and The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket. Lord Weary's Castle was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947.

The 1951 volume The Mills of the Kavanaughs was considered inferior to the earlier volume, despite such fine poems as Falling Asleep over the Aeneid and Mother Marie Therese, but Lowell's reputation was renewed with Life Studies from 1959.

His earlier poetry belonged to the formalist school of poetry, but with Life Studies, Lowell developed a style that would soon be labeled "confessional" poetry.

Life Studies includes the oft-reprinted poem "Skunk Hour," a poem that is primarily a description of a fading New England town, punctuated by two stanzas of what was, at the time, shocking personal confession, such as the declaration, "My mind's not right." Other confessional poems in the volume include Memories of West Street and Lepke and My Last Afternoon with Uncle Deveraux Winslow. It also includes the prose memoir 91 Revere Street. Life Studies is widely viewed as one of the most influential and important books of poetry in the 20th century.

Lowell followed Life Studies with a volume of loose translations of poems by, among others, Rilke and Rimbaud, Imitations, for which he received the 1962 Bollingen Poetry Translation Prize.

For the Union Dead, 1964, was also widely praised, particularly for its title poem, which invokes Allen Tate's Ode to the Confederate Dead. Following this book, however, many critics began to find Lowell's poetry collections becoming more inconsistent.

During 1967 and 1968 he experimented with a verse journal, published as Notebook, 1967-68. These poems loosely based on the sonnet were reworked into three volumes. History deals with public history from antiquity onwards, and with modern poets Lowell had known; For Lizzie and Harriet describes the breakdown of his second marriage; and The Dolphin, which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize includes poems about his marriage to Caroline Blackwood and their life in England.

A minor controversy erupted when he incorporated private letters from his second wife, Elizabeth Hardwick into For Lizzie and Harriet. He was particularly criticized by his friends, Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth Bishop, for this.

Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1947 and 1974, and the National Book Award for poetry in 1960.

Works

Land of Unlikeness (1944)
Lord Weary's Castle (1946)
The Mills of The Kavanaughs (1951)
Life Studies (1959)
Phaedra (translation) (1961)
Imitations (1961)
For the Union Dead (1964)
The Old Glory (1965)
Near the Ocean (1967)
The Voyage & other versions of poems of Baudelaire (1969)
Prometheus Bound (1969)
Notebook (1969) (Revised and Expanded Edition, 1970)
For Lizzie and Harriet (1973)
History (1973)
The Dolphin (1973)
Selected Poems (1976) (Revised Edition, 1977)
Day by Day (1977)
Collected Poems (2003)

Trivia

The lyrics of the They Might Be Giants song "Robert Lowell" are taken entirely from the poem "Memories of West Street and Lepke" by Robert Lowell (although they have been "recontextualized" by They Might Be Giants for rock music purposes). The song was featured on a CD accompanying issue #6 of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern featuring letters from a young Robert Lowell.

External links

Credits

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