Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917–September 12, 1977), born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, IV, was a highly regarded mid-twentieth-century American poet. He was known from adolescence on as Cal, after the Roman Emperor Caligula. March 1 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (61st in leap years). ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Portal:Currentevents September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ...

Life

Robert Lowell was born into the Boston Brahmin family that included Amy Lowell and James Russell Lowell. He attended Harvard College but transferred to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, to study under John Crowe Ransom. He was a Roman Catholic from 1940 to 1946, which influenced his first two books, Land of Unlikeness (1944) and the Pulitzer Prize winning Lord Weary's Castle (1946). In 1950, Lowell was included in the influential anthology Mid-Century American Poets as one of the key literary figures of his generation. Among his contemporaries who also appeared in that book were Muriel Rukeyser, Karl Shapiro, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Randall Jarrell, and John Ciardi, all poets who came into prominence in the 1940s. Amy Lowell Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. ... James Russell Lowell circa 1855. ... John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 - July 3, 1974) was an American poet, essayist, and social commentator. ... Muriel Rukeyser Muriel Rukeyser (December 15, 1913–February 12, 1980) was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. ... Karl Jay Shapiro (November 10, 1913-May 14, 2000) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning United States poet, famous for his poetry written in the Pacific Theater while he served there during World War II. His collection V-Letter and Other Poems, written while Shapiro was stationed in New Guinea, was... Theodore Huebner Roethke (; RET-key) (May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was a United States poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm and natural imagery. ... Randall Jarrell (1914 - 1965) was a United States author, writer and poet. ... John Anthony Ciardi (June 24, 1916 - March 30, 1986) was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. ...

Lowell was a conscientious objector during World War II and served several months at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. He was married to novelist Jean Stafford from 1940 to 1948. In 1949 he married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick. In the 1960s, he became a media personality, befriending such celebrities as Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy, Mary McCarthy, Father Daniel Berrigan, and Eugene McCarthy. Jean Stafford (July 1, 1915-March 26, 1979) was an award-winning American short story writer and novelist, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her Collected Short Stories in 1970. ... Elizabeth Hardwick (July 27, 1916) is an American literary critic, novelist, and short-story writer. ... First official White House portrait. ... Robert Kennedy Robert Francis Bobby Kennedy, also called RFK (November 20, 1925–June 6, 1968) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. ... Mary McCarthy may refer to: Mary McCarthy (author), novelist, critic, and memoirist (1912-1989) Mary McCarthy (CIA), a former CIA employee accused of leaking information Mary McCarthy (screenwriter) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Daniel Berrigan at College of the Holy Cross, September 28, 2005. ... Eugene Joseph Gene McCarthy (March 29, 1916 – December 10, 2005) was an American politician and a longtime member of the U.S. Congress. ...

Lowell was hospitalized approximately twenty times for a bipolar disorder that had been diagnosed at one point as "acute schizophrenia" and was later identified as "manic depression." He was treated with Thorazine through most of the 1950s and 1960s until it was shown to be ineffective, and in 1967, he began taking lithium, which, with psychiatric therapy sessions added, gradually enabled him to achieve a measure of peace, although he was never entirely free of the symptoms that caused erratic behavior all through his life.

In 1970 he left Elizabeth Hardwick for the British author, Lady Caroline Blackwood. He spent many 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, New Hampshire. This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ...

Lowell's collected poems were published in 2003 and his letters in 2005, leading to a renewed interest in his work.

Writing

Lowell reached wide acclaim for his 1946 book, Lord Weary's Castle, which included ten poems slightly revised from his earlier Land of Unlikeness, and thirty new poems. Among the better known 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 in 1947. The gold medal awarded for Public Service in Journalism The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. ...

The Mills of the Kavanaughs (1951) did not receive a similar acclaim, but Lowell was able to revive his reputation with the award-winning Life Studies (1959), a book that reflected stylistic changes that seemed more in line with the popular openness of Beat and Confessional poetry. It was a shift that for the rest of Lowell's career would produce frequent flashes of brilliance and enable him to achieve respect among Counter Culture revisionists.

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. John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 - February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, and social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1943 - 1944. ...

During 1967 and 1968 he experimented with a verse journal, published as Notebook, 1967-68. These poems loosely based on the sonnet form 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. Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch, one of the best-known of the early Italian sonnet writers For the Saab automobile, see Saab Sonett, for the Japanese communications company see So-net. ... The gold medal awarded for Public Service in Journalism The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. ...

A minor controversy erupted when he incorporated private letters from his second wife, Elizabeth Hardwick into For Lizzie and Harriet. He was particularly criticized for this by his friends Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth Bishop. Image:AdrienneRich. ... Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979), was an American poet and writer, increasingly regarded as one of the finest 20th century poets writing in English. ...

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)
• The Oresteia of Aeschylus (1978)[1]
• Collected Poems (2003)

Phèdre was a 1677 play by Jean Racine, based on both the play Hippolytus by Euripides, and a later Roman play Phaedra by Seneca the Younger. ... Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek play. ...

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.

One of the tracks of Poetry Meets Music has a mash-up of Lowell reading For The Union Dead over music by Philip Glass. . They Might Be Giants (commonly abbreviated to TMBG) is an American alternative rock duo consisting of John Linnell and John Flansburgh, collectively known as the two Johns or John and John. Known for their experimental pop music, they have been popular on college campuses and earned a reputation for intellectual... CD may stand for: Compact Disc Canadian Forces Decoration Cash Dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrum-Demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) Certificate of Deposit České Dráhy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers Datorförening (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s... Timothy McSweeneys Quarterly Concern is a semi-quarterly literary journal published by the McSweeneys publishing house. ... Philip Glass looks at sheet music in a portrait taken by Annie Leibovitz. ...

External links

• Articles on Lowell at Modern American Poetry
• 1982 Audio Interview with Ian Hamilton, author of the biography, Robert Lowell - RealAudio
• Lowell's interview with The Paris Review
• Robert Lowell bio and poetry. Part of a series of poets.
• Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell
• ［http://www.literaryhistory.com/20thC/Lowell.htm Literary Criticism on Robert Lowell］