Robert Lowell: A BiographyBorn in 1917 into an aristocratic Boston family Robert Lowell was not yet thirty when his first major collection of poems, Lord Weary's Castle, won the Pulitzer Prize. With Life Studies, his third book, he found the intense, highly personal voice that made him the foremost American poet of his generation. He held strong, complex and very public political views. His private life was turbulent, marred by manic depression and troubled marriages. But in this superb biography the poet Ian Hamilton illuminates both the life and the work of Lowell with sympathetic understanding and consummate narrative skill. Hamilton, an English poet who knew Lowell well during his last years in England, writes with the authority of personal acquaintance and personal sympathy, as well as with critical interest in his works. He deftly weaves the life story and literary criticism, covering his childhood, the years at Harvard and Kenyon, the influence of John Crowe Ransom, Peter Taylor, Allan Tate and Caroline Gordon, his three marriages and a discussion of his poems. |
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Allen Tate American Anne April August Blair Clark Bobby Boston Cal's called Caroline Blackwood Castine Charlotte Lowell December doctor Dolphin Eliot Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Hardwick father February feel felt Frank Bidart Frank Parker friends Harriet Winslow Harvard hospital Houghton Library Ibid interview with I.H. January Jean Stafford John Berryman July Kennedy Kenyon knew later letter literary living Lizzie look Lord Weary's Castle Lowell wrote Lowell's Macauley manic March Mark's marriage married McCarthy McLean's Merrill Moore months mother never night Notebook November October perhaps Peter Taylor poems poet poetry prose R.L. to Blair R.L. to Charlotte R.L. to Elizabeth R.L. to Peter Randall Jarrell Ransom remember Review Richard Eberhart Robert Giroux Robert Lowell Roethke seems September sort stay Straus & Giroux Street summer talk things thought told Vetra week writing written Yaddo York