Griffin Dynes

Mrs. Kirschner
English II
23 March, 2016
Robert Lowell: Life of a Poetic Genius
Robert Lowell IV was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 1, 1917 to Robert Lowell
III, a US Naval officer and Charlotte Winslow. He was an influential poet who played major
roles in many types of poetry. Lowell IV is considered one of the founders of the confessional
poetry style. Since popularity of this genre of poetry has grown so much, Robert Lowell may be
considered one of the most influential and important poets of the mid-1900s time period.
During his high school career, Robert Lowell went to St. Marks prep school and after, he
continued his college studies at Harvard University. However, after family problems had
occurred, Lowell moved around universities beginning at Vanderbilt, then following John Crowe
Ransom, an English professor, to Kenyon College where he graduated in 1940. After graduating
summa cum laude for Classics, Lowell went to Louisiana State University to study more about
literature. Before heading off to LSU, Lowell married Jean Stafford, a short story writer and
novelist. After he was done studying at LSU, he and his wife moved to Tennessee where they
shared a living space with Allen Tate, a poet, and Caroline Gordon, a writer. Soon after, Lowell
transferred to New York City where he taught and published different works. When 1943 came
around, Lowell was drafted to serve in World War II but turned it down; he tried to enlist earlier
but they wouldnt let him. Since he turned down the draft, Lowell had to serve a year in prison.
After he had spent time in jail, Lowell began to write more professionally.

In 1944, Lowell published Land of Unlikeness which was his first book and in 1946, he
released Lord Wearys Castle, the second of his books and a 1947 Pulitzer Prize winner. Both
of these works display bits about Lowells conversion from being Episcopalian to Catholic. After
his prize winning book was released, The Mills of the Kavanaughs was published in 1951.
Unfortunately, this work did not do well with critics. However, in 1959, Life Studies was
publicized, a free verse in the confessional manner poem. This work ended up winning the
National Book Award for the year in 1959. After this, one of his most well-known works was
released called Skunk Hour. However, in the 1965, he wrote the playwright for The Old
Glory, an off-Broadway play which was credited with many Obies (off-Broadway award)
including Best American Play. The play was originally supposed to be released in three parts,
however, since it was too long, the first section was taken out. The full play was never presented
in the two other revivals of The Old Glory. After this was written, Lowell continued to write
more poetry and even an adaptation of Aeschylus Prometheus Bound, a popular Greek
tragedy. Throughout most of his adult life, Robert Lowell wrote many genres of poetry such as
confessional, traditional, poems that reflected history. One topic that he also included in some
works were his involvements with politics and with anti-war campaigns. This topic was
focused on more commonly Robert Lowells works written in the middle to late 1960s. Another
widely used subject for his poetry was of his personal life as shown through his confessional
poetry often. However, Lowell is most known for his confessional poems, one style that he also
uses is descriptive poetry.
In his poem July in Washington, from his post-mortem book Collected Poems,
describes a simple July day in Washington D.C. One quote that draws an accurate picture of what
Lowell is seeing in Washington is, on the Potomac, swan-white/ power launches keep

breasting the sulphurous wave. Otters slide and dive and slick back their hair, / raccoons clean
their meat in the creek. (3-7) From reading these lines, the reader can clearly imagine the shore
of the river in this summer day. Lowell also mentions the people that go to the nations capital.
He writes, the elect, the electedthey come here bright as dimes, / and die dishevelled and
soft. From this line, some may interpret it as people come to D.C. with a clean reputation but
leave ruined. During this poem, there are no rhymes nor is there a rhyme scheme. This poem is a
great example of Lowells use descriptive poetry. Another type of poetry Lowell uses commonly
reflects on historical events.
In the poem, Identification in Belfast, Lowell describes an occurrence of an
interrogation after an IRA bombing in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Lowell opens the poem by
describing the British Army now carr[ying] two rifles, one with rubber-pellets for children, the
others of course for the Provisionals... (1-3) A Provisional is a member of the IRA. During this,
the Army is identifying who the bomber is, in this case a boy. Throughout the whole poem,
Lowell focuses on who the boy is by showing the innocents of him. The symbol for the boys
decency is a pack of trick matches that he carries around with him everywhere. Although the
police, during the situation, seem to be questioning the boy, they dont care about what he does.
The police allow the boy to light a match during the identification. The poem ends quite abruptly
with the sentence, then I knew he was Richard! (14) It ends with the boy finally being
identified as someone named Richard.
During the late 1940s, Robert Lowell began to have problems with his family and health.
In 1948, Jean Stafford, his wife at the time, and he underwent divorce but, a year later Lowell
married Elizabeth Hardwick; she was a writer from Kentucky. Later in 1950, Lowells father
died of a long illness. After this tragic event, he and his wife travelled to Europe for a couple

of years, and while living there, Lowells mother died in 1954. As a result from these incidents,
he got manic depression which affected him during his adult life. When Lowell returned back to
the United States, he was hospitalized in a McLean Hospital in Massachusetts. After he was
released, he began to teach college courses at Harvard, Boston University, Yale, and the
University of Cincinnati. However, his issues continued to grow worse through the years.
During this time in his life, Robert Lowell was married to Elizabeth Hardwick. In his
poetic book Life Studies, he talks about a marriage in the poem Man and Wife. This may be
about his marriage to Hardwick because during this time in their relationship, Lowell was having
affairs with some women and was unfaithful to his wife. The first stanza, though lengthy, talks
about how life used to be before there were any problems. Lowell mentions them lying in bed
tamed by Miltown, (1) an older anxiety-relieving drug. Robert Lowell uses a great use of
descriptive words paint a colorful image in the readers mind. All night Ive held your hand,/ as
if you had/ a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad. (8-10) This quote shows the
comfortability in there early relationship. However, in the second stanza, he focuses on life in the
present day with his wife. Lowell talks about how now twelve years later, [she] turn[s] [her]
back. (23) This represents the shakiness in the man and womans marriage. Unfortunately, his
marital issues did not help to solve his current mental and physical problems that were occurring
in his life.
Still struggling from waves of manic depression, Lowell tried to find therapies to help his
manic depression and also bipolar disorder, but nothing seemed to work for him. Eventually, like
many other American poets at the time, Robert Lowell turned to alcoholism to ease his pain
caused by his issues. He also used this to escape from his family issues with his wives and other
lovers he had at the time.

As shown in the last poem chronologically released in Robert Lowells lifetime,

Epilogue, the last poem on his last book, Day By Day, goes over his life with what he wishes
to be after he dies. Lowell states those blessed structures, plot and rhyme-/ why are they no help
to me now/ I want to make/ something imagined, not recalled? (1-4) These lines in the poem
show that Lowell wants to his works to be remembered not something that readers can only
recall. The entire tone of the poem is Robert Lowell despairing of his life knowing that he will
be dying soon. Unfortunately with many physical and mental problems, Robert Lowell died on
September 12, 1977 of a heart attack.
Robert Lowell posted his last work close to the end of his life in 1977 called Day By
Day. The poetry book reflected over all his struggles that occurred throughout his life. Lowells
last work was his post-mortem book of prose called The Collected Prose, released in 1987.
This was comprised of many of his later prose that were either never released, or were written
close to his death.
In his life span, Robert Lowell was awarded many accolades for his poetry. Not only did
he win a Pulitzer Prize but also became the United States Poet Laureate in 1947, won two
National Book Awards for Poetry, received and Obie for Best New American Play, and many
more. Since his death, Lowell has been attributed in a song which uses his name and one of his
poems as the title and lyrics. He was mentioned in HBOs The 50 Year Argument, for being
involved in the founding of The New York Review of Books. The play Dear Elizabeth,
playwright by Sarah Ruhl, was based off of a novel written by and about Robert Lowell and
Elizabeth Bishop. The play was performed in Yales theater in 2012. Lowells last poem,
Water, was referenced in the song I Was a Lonely Estate by the band Empire! Empire!