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Robert Lowell (1917~1977)

http://ahyco.ffri.hr/seminari2007/1960s/images/Poetry/robert_lowell.jpg

"The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train."
~Robert Lowell

Old Flame My old flame, my wife!  Remember our lists of birds?  One morning last summer, I drove  by our house in Maine. It was still  on top of its hill -

Now a red ear of Indian maize  was splashed on the door.  Old Glory with thirteen stripes  hung on a pole. The clapboard  was old-red schoolhouse red.

Inside, a new landlord,  a new wife, a new broom!  Atlantic seaboard antique shop  pewter and plunder  shone in each room.

A new frontier! <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> No running next door <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> now to phone the sheriff <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> for his taxi to Bath <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> and the State Liquor Store!

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">No one saw your ghostly <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> imaginary lover <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> stare through the window <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> and tighten <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> the scarf at his throat

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">Health to the new people, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> health to their flag, to their old <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> restored house on the hill! <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> Everything had been swept bare, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> furnished, garnished and aired.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">Everything's changed for the best - <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> how quivering and fierce we were, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> there snowbound together, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> simmering like wasps <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> in our tent of books!

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">Poor ghost, old love, speak <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> with your old voice <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> of flaming insight <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> that kept us awake all night. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> In one bed and apart,

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">we heard the plow <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> groaning up hill - <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> a red light, then a blue, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> as it tossed off the snow <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"> to the side of the road.

[] ^ Follow along with the above link to audio of Robert Lowell reading his famous poem "Old Flame".

= The Life of Robert Lowell  = =<span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; white-space: normal;">Robert Lowell is widely known as a highly accomplished confessional poet. He was born on March 1, 1917 into a distinguished family living in Boston, Massachusetts.Throughout his childhood, he attended all private schools before enrolling in Harvard University, which was considered tradition for his family (Calvert). Other distinguished members of Lowell's family who involved in poetry include critic and poet James Russell Lowell and poet Amy Lowell (Liukkonen). Within his first year of college, Lowell began showing signs of mental instability ("Robert Lowell"). In 1940, he married Jean Stafford, a novelist and short-story writer. The same year, he converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholic (Calvert). Lowell wrote his first volume of poetry, //The Land of Unlikeness,// while serving prison time for his refusal to serve when drafted into war ("Robert Lowell 1917-1977"). In 1948, he divorced from Stafford and remarried a year later to Elizabeth Hardwick who was also a novelist. Throughout the rest of his life, Lowell began suffering from mental breakdowns and depression. He divorced Elizabeth Hardwick and remarried one last time to Caroline Blackwood. In 1977, he died of heart failure on his way to visit his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick ("Robert Lowell 1917-1977"). Lowell's life was full of tragedy and depression, but that did not stop him from going down in history as one of the most accomplished confessional poets. =

Lowell's influences contributed greatly to the amazing work he accomplished. When Lowell attended Kenyon College in Ohio, he took a degree in classics and studied with poets Allen Tate, John Crowe Ranson, and Robert Penn Warren (Robert Lowell 1917-1977). These poets influenced his formal style of rhythm and meter. Lowell became a contentious objector during World War II, which inspired his first volume of poetry, //Land of Unlikeness,// which he wrote mostly while in jail. Lowell's conversion from protestantism to catholicism also influenced the subject matter he included in his poetry (Robert Lowell 1917-1977). Lowell's more personal experiences influenced his later, more confessional poetry. For example, the death of his mother influenced his poem "Sailing Home from Rapallo" in which he uses personal pronouns so it is clear that he is referring to his own mother. Lowell also looks back on his experiences with an old love in his poem "Old Flame". Lowell's influences helped him achieve major accomplishments. In 1947, Lowell won a Pulitzer Prize for his book of poetry, //Lord Weary's Castle.// He won a second Pulitzer Prize for his later collection, //The Dolphin.// His book of poetry, //Life Studies,// gave rise to the trend now known as "confessionalism" (Robert Lowell 1917-1977.) Robert Lowell's influences helped him create beautiful confessional poetry in the twentieth century.

http://www.poets.org/images/authors/rlowell.jpg

Biography Poem  Robert    Confessional Poet, political activist    Unstable, skilled, respected, creative, depressed    Lover of his mother, Jean Stafford, Elizabeth Hardwick, Caroline Blackwood    Who believed in protest, the power of his words, and the right to refuse to serve in the war    Who feared death, war, and unfavorable reviews    Who wanted peace, an established career, and the love of others    Who gave the world wisdom, a diary of his struggles with life, and love and realism through his books    Who said, "The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train." Lowell

= Lowell's Work  = ==== Though Robert Lowell is an extremely accomplished poet, he didn’t exactly stick to one writing style throughout his career. Lowell's early work is comprised of a formal style such as rhythm and meter, while his later work is more comprised of emotional content, which gave him the title as one of the main founders of confessional poetry. In the beginning of his career, Lowell wrote sonnets which allow poets to show related to differing ideas, beliefs, etc. to the reader in order to communicate something about them. Sonnets have a meter of iambic pentameter, as well as specific groups of words that rhyme. As Lowell began to stray away from sonnet writing and onto longer poems, he did not leave out the use of meter and rhythm. Rhythm is a commonality to poetry. It is a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables. Under the influence of Allen Tate, he wrote formal poetry that drew praise from critics for its exeptionally powerful handling of meter and rhyme ("Robert Lowell"). Meter is just the recurring pattern of the stressed and unstressed syllables in poems. A critic examining Robert Lowell's poem "Obit", written in 1968, concludes that the poem does not neatly follow iambic pentameter, but follows an iambic rhythm instead ("On Robert Lowell's "Obit"'). Lowell's early loose use of rhythm and meter attributed to much of his success. ==== ==== Lowell made a great transition in his content as his career progressed. Lowell's conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism and his new political views are also in his first two books, //The Land of Unlikeness,// and //Lord Weary's Castle// (Lowell, Robert). During this time, Lowell strayed away from formality that he was accustomed to writing and began to focus on autobiographical, person themes rather than ambitious ideas ("Lowell, Robert"). Some common ideas he expressed in his newly confessional style were marital problems, love, death, and other past experiences. An example of this type of subject matter can be found in his proem "The Old Flame"//.// Lowell writes, "My old flame, my wife! Remember our lists of birds? One morning last summer, I drove by our house in Maine. It was still at the top of its hill." The use of possessive adjectives throughout this whole poem suggests that he is speaking from personal experience. He almost treats this poem as a tribute to the love and adventures he shared with the woman he is referring to, meaning that this is a prime example of confessional subject matter. Another example that can be identified is in his poem "Man and Wife", where he writes about his marriage in an artistic form. Lowell writes, "You hold your pillow to your hollows like a child, your old-fashioned trade - loving, rapid, merciless - breaks like the Atlantic Ocean on my head." Lowell is writing as if he is observing his wife and describes her as loving, rapid, and merciless, which suggests that he is paying tribute to her in this poem. An example of dark subject matter Lowell often incorporates can be found in his poem "Sailing Home From Rapallo"//.// In the first stanza, Lowell writes, "Your nurse could only speak Italian, but after twenty minutes I could imagine your final week, and tears ran down my cheeks..." In this poem Lowell is referring to the death of his own mother and connects with the reader about this emotional time. A critic analyzing Lowell's "Skunk Hour" claims that it "Blends aspects of Lowell's personal, psychological life with images from the modern world in order to depict the struggles of the individual self as it comes to terms with human and personal history (Cone, "Skunk hour")". Frank Bidart, another critic claims that Lowell's //Life studies// communicates to the reader who the real Robert Lowell seems to be, but often times this seems to be an illusion. He also claims that this illusion of reality in a confession poet is often an aesthetic effect ("Frank Bidart on Robert Lowell"). Lowell's later poetry was extremely successful because of his subject matter and content, which gave him the title of a truly "confessional" poet. ====

Epilogue

why are they no help to me now I want to make something imagined, not recalled? I hear the noise of my own voice: //The painter's vision is not a lens,// //it trembles to caress the light.// But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eye seems a snapshot, lurid, rapid, garish, grouped, heightened from life, yet paralyzed by fact. All's misalliance. Yet why not say what happened? Pray for the grace of accuracy Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination stealing like the tide across a map to his girl solid with yearning. We are poor passing facts, warned by that to give each figure in the photograph his living name. ||
 * ||  Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9haUJ2xIw ^ Follow along with the reading of Robert Lowell's Epilogue.

** Robert Lowell goes down in history as an excellent confessional poet. He remained strong through death and depression and managed to write some of the greatest poetry this world has ever seen. Robert Lowell is one of the main founders of confessional poetry along with Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Barryman, and others. Lowell contributed many collections of poetry to the world that were full of wisdom and his account on personal experiences. Robert Lowell defined confessional poetry and left his poetic touch on the world that is still remember today. **



http://gatheringbooks.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/robert-lowell.jpg

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Works Cited

Calvert, Paul N. "Lowell, Robert." In Bryer, Jackson R., and Mary C. Hartig, eds. //The Facts On File Companion to American Drama//, Second Edition. New York:Facts On File, Inc., 2010.//Bloom's Literary Reference Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=CAD306&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 6, 2011).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Cone, Temple. "'Skunk Hour'." In Kimmelman, Burt, and Temple Cone, eds. //The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry//, vol. 2. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. //Bloom's Literary Reference Online//. Facts On []= CTAP0506&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 10, 2011).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 26px;">"Frank Bidart on Robert Lowell." //Poetry Speaks, Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath.// Eds. Elise Paschen and Rebekah Mosby. Naperville: Soucebook Mediafusion, 2001. Print. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px;">Liukkonen, Petri and Ari Personen."Robert Lowell." //Www.kirjasto.sci.fi, 2008.// Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rlowell.htm>. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; padding: 0px;">"Lowell, Robert." //Info:Main Page - New World Encyclopedia//. Web. 26 Apr. 2011. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Robert_Lowell> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; padding: 0px;">"On Robert Lowell's "Obit"" //Writing The Messianic//. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; cursor: pointer; padding-right: 10px;">[]. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -36px; word-wrap: break-word;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Robert Lowell." //Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More//. Web. 26 Apr. 2011. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; cursor: pointer; padding-right: 10px;">[]. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px;">“Robert Lowell 1917-1977.” //Poetry Speaks, Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath.// Eds. Elise Paschen and Rebekah Mosby. Naperville: Soucebook Mediafusion, 2001. Print. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em; word-wrap: break-word;">