Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet.
Robert Lowell | |
|---|---|
 At the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Harvard Square, 1965 | |
| Born | Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV March 1, 1917 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | September 12, 1977 (aged 60) New York City, U.S. |
| Resting place | Stark Cemetery Dunbarton, New Hampshire, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Period | 1944–1977 |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Literary movement | Confessional poetry |
| Notable works | Lord Weary's Castle, Life Studies, For the Union Dead, The Dolphin (1973) |
| Spouse | Jean Stafford (m. 1940; div. 1948) Elizabeth Hardwick (m. 1949; div. 1972) Caroline Blackwood (m. 1972) |
| Children | 2 |
Lowell was born in 1917 into one of Boston’s oldest families.[1] He went to Harvard College for two years and then to Kenyon College. There he studied poetry with poet John Crowe Ransom and graduated in 1940. Then he studied at Louisiana State University. His teachers there were poet Robert Penn Warren and critic Cleanth Brooks.[1]
Many readers and critics thought Lowell was "the most important poet in English of the second half of the twentieth century."[1] In 1947 and 1948, he was the sixth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.[2] He won the National Book Award in 1960 (''Life Studies''),[3] the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947 (''Lord Weary's Castle'')[4] and 1974 (''The Dolphin''),[5] the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 (''Day by Day''),[6] and a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1947.[7]
Lowell lived with bipolar disorder all of his life.[8] He died suddenly in 1977.[9]
Books
- Land of Unlikeness (1944)
- Lord Weary's Castle (1946)
- The Mills of The Kavanaughs (1951)
- Life Studies (1959)
- Phaedra (translation) (1961)
- Imitations (1961)
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864 (1964)
- For the Union Dead (1964)
- The Old Glory (1965)
- Near the Ocean (1967)
- R. F. K., 1925-1968 privately printed limited edition (1969)
- Notebook 1967-1968 (1969) (revised and expanded as Notebook, 1970)
- The Voyage & other versions of poems of Baudelaire (1969)
- Prometheus Bound (translation) (1969)
- Poesie, 1940-1970 (English with Italian translations), Longanesi (Milan), (1972)
- History (1973)
- For Lizzie and Harriet (1973)
- The Dolphin (1973)
- Selected Poems (1976) (Revised Edition, 1977)
- Day by Day (1977)
- The Oresteia of Aeschylus (1978)
- Collected Prose (1987)
- Collected Poems (2003)
Robert Lowell Media
Lowell as a child with his father, Commander Robert Traill Spence Lowell III, around 1920
St. Mark's School, Southborough, Massachusetts
Vietnam War protestors at the March on the Pentagon, 1967
Robert Lowell, Jean Stafford (Lowell's first wife), and Peter Taylor in front of The Presbytere at Jackson Square in New Orleans in 1941. Photo by Robie Macauley
Lowell's mother, Charlotte Winslow Lowell, in 1915. Along with Lowell's father and grandfather, she is a central subject in Life Studies, specifically in the poems "Sailing Home From Rapallo," "91 Revere Street," and "Commander Lowell".
The Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Boston. The bronze bas-relief memorial figures prominently in Lowell's poem "For the Union Dead."
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "About Robert Lowell | Academy of American Poets". poets.org. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
- ↑ "Consultants and Poets Laureate | Poet Laureate | Poetry & Literature | Programs | Library of Congress". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
- ↑ Andrews, Meredith (1960-11-18). "Robert Lowell accepts the 1960 National Book Award in Poetry for Life Studies". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
- ↑ "1947 Pulitzer Prizes". The Pulitzer Prizes. 2023. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
- ↑ "1974 Pulitzer Prizes". The Pulitzer Prizes. 2023. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
- ↑ "1977". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
- ↑ "Writers, Artists Receive Honors For Achievements in Fete Here". The New York Times: 17. May 23, 1947. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/05/23/87529936.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
- ↑ Hart, H. (2004). "Lowell, Robert". Oxford Reference - The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
- ↑ "Robert Lowell". Poetry Foundation. 2023-03-03. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
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