Biography lowell robert

He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which was then called manic depression, in the s. This condition caused him to experience extreme mood swings, from periods of intense creativity and productivity to deep depression and despair. In his writing, he often explored themes of madness, suffering, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world.

Despite his challenges, Lowell continued to create powerful and influential poetry until his death in His legacy as a poet and a voice for those who struggle with mental illness continues to inspire and resonate with readers today. He was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War and was arrested multiple times for his participation in anti-war protests.

Lowell was also a strong advocate for civil rights and was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, participating in marches and protests alongside other activists. His political views were reflected in his poetry, which often addressed social and political issues.

Biography lowell robert: Robert Traill Spence Lowell

Despite this, Lowell remained committed to his beliefs and continued to use his platform as a writer to speak out against injustice and inequality. As a devout Catholic, he often grappled with the tension between his faith and his personal struggles, including his battles with mental illness and addiction. In his poetry, Lowell frequently explored themes of sin, redemption, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world.

His religious convictions also informed his political views, as he became increasingly involved in anti-war activism and social justice causes later in life. He taught at various universities, including Harvard, where he mentored many young poets who would go on to become famous in their own right. He encouraged his students to take risks and to push themselves beyond their comfort zones.

Many of his former students credit him with helping them to find their own voices as writers. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He spent time in Europe, where he was exposed to new ideas and perspectives that would shape his work for years to come. In particular, his time in England and Ireland had a profound impact on his poetry, as he was inspired by the landscapes and cultures of these countries.

Throughout his life, Lowell continued to travel and explore new places, and his writing continued to reflect these experiences. His experiences in different locations shaped his poetry and prose in profound ways, and his work continues to be celebrated for its vivid depictions of the world around us. Lowell, Robert oxford. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia.

Biography lowell robert: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert

More From encyclopedia. About this article Robert Lowell All Sources. Updated Aug 24 About encyclopedia. Related Topics James Russell Lowell. Robert Lee Moore. Robert Laurel Crippen. Robert Koffler Jarvik. Robert Knox. Robert Kilwardby. Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning. Mordecai Myers father of Theodorus Bailey MyersLowell's great-grandunclea soldier in the War of and later mayor of Kinderhook and Schenectady ; [ 9 ] [ 10 ] and on his mother's side, he was descended from the German-Jewish Mordecai family of Raleigh, North Carolinawho were prominent in state affairs.

As a youth, Lowell had a penchant for violence and bullying other children. Lowell received his high school education at St. Mark's Schoola prominent prep school in Southborough, Massachusetts. There he met and was influenced by the poet Richard Eberhartwho taught at the school, and as a high school student, Lowell decided that he wanted to become a poet.

At St. Mark's, he became lifelong friends with Frank Parker, an artist who later created the prints that Lowell used on the covers of most of his books. Lowell attended Harvard College for two years. While he was a freshman at Harvard, he visited Robert Frost in Cambridge and asked for feedback on a long poem he had written on the Crusades; Frost suggested that Lowell needed to work on his compression.

In an interview, Lowell recalled, "I had a huge blank verse epic on the First Crusade and took it to him all in my undecipherable pencil-writing, and he read a little of it, and said, 'It goes on rather a bit, doesn't it? After two years at Harvard, Lowell was unhappy, [ 18 ] and his psychiatrist, Merrill Moorewho was also a poet, suggested that Lowell take a leave of absence from Harvard to get away from his parents and study with Moore's friend, the poet-professor Allen Tate who was then living in Nashville and teaching at Vanderbilt University.

Lowell traveled to Nashville with Moore, who took Lowell to Tate's house. Lowell asked Tate if he could live with him and his wife, and Tate joked that if Lowell wanted to, Lowell could pitch a tent on Tate's lawn; Lowell then went to Sears to purchase a tent that he set up on Tate's lawn and lived in for two months. After spending time with the Tates in Nashville and attending some classes taught by John Crowe Ransom at VanderbiltLowell decided to leave Harvard.

He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year and was valedictorian of his class. He settled into the so-called "writer's house" a dorm that received its nickname after it had accrued several ambitious young writers with fellow students Peter TaylorRobie Macauley and Randall Jarrell. Bernetta Quinn. Lowell was a conscientious objector during World War II [ 27 ] and served several months at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

He explained his decision not to serve in World War II in a letter addressed to President Franklin Roosevelt on September 7,stating, "Dear Mr President: I very much regret that I must refuse the opportunity you offer me in your communication of August 6, for service in the Armed Force. While at Yaddo in Lowell became involved in the Red Scare and accused then director, Elizabeth Ames, of harboring communists and being romantically involved with another resident, Agnes Smedley.

If Ames were not fired immediately, Lowell vowed to "blacken the name of Yaddo as widely as possible" using his connections in the literary sphere and Washington. The Yaddo board voted to drop all charges against Ames. Lowell's letter to the president was his first major political act of protest, but it would not be his last. During the mid to late s, Lowell actively opposed the Vietnam War.

In response to American air raids in Vietnam inLowell rejected an invitation to the White House Festival of the Arts from President Lyndon Johnson in a letter that he subsequently published in The New York Timesstating, "We are in danger of imperceptibly becoming an explosive and suddenly chauvinistic nation, and may even be drifting on our way to the last nuclear ruin.

He was vehemently opposed to the war, but equivocal about being identified too closely with the 'peace movement': there were many views he did not share with the more fiery of the 'peaceniks' and it was not in his nature to join movements that he had no wish to lead. Mailer described the peace march and his impression of Lowell that day in the early sections of his non-fiction novel The Armies of the Night.

InLowell publicly supported the Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in a three-way primary against Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Lowell spoke at numerous fundraisers for McCarthy in New York that year, but "[his] heart went out of the race" after Robert Kennedy's assassination.

Scholar Helen Vendler attended one of Lowell's poetry courses and wrote that one of the best aspects of Lowell's informal style was that he talked about poets in class as though "the poets [being studied] were friends or acquaintances". Hamilton quoted students who stated that Lowell "taught 'almost by indirection', 'he turned every poet into a version of himself', [and] 'he told stories [about the poets' lives] as if they were the latest news.

In Marchthe Academy of American Poets named Life Studies one of their Groundbreaking Books of the 20th century, stating that it had "a profound impact", particularly over the confessional poetry movement that the book helped launch. Robert Lowell's poems about his experience in a mental hospital, for example, interested me very much.

Eliot 's The Waste Land. During the s, Lowell was the most public, well-known American poet; in Junehe appeared on the cover of Time as part of a cover story in which he was praised as "the best American poet of his generation. Lowell married the novelist and short-story writer Jean Stafford in Before their marriage, inLowell and Stafford were in a serious car crash, in which Lowell was at the wheel, that left Stafford permanently scarred, while Lowell walked away unscathed.

Shortly thereafter, inLowell married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick with whom he had a daughter, Harriet, in After Hardwick's death inThe New York Times would characterize the marriage as "restless and emotionally harrowing," reflecting the very public portrait of their marriage and divorce as Lowell captured it in his books For Lizzie and Harriet and The Dolphin.

Blackwood and Lowell were married in in England where they decided to settle and where they raised their son, Sheridan. Lowell also became the stepfather to Blackwood's young daughter, Ivana, [ 52 ] for whom he would write the sonnet "Ivana," published in his book The Dolphin. Lowell had a close friendship with the poet Elizabeth Bishop that lasted from until Lowell's death in Both writers relied upon one another for critiques of their poetry which is in evidence in their voluminous correspondence, published in the book Words in Air: the Complete Correspondence biography lowell robert Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell in and thereby influenced one another's work.

Lowell also maintained a close friendship with Randall Jarrell from their meeting at Kenyon College until Jarrell's death. Lowell openly acknowledged Jarrell's influence over his writing and frequently sought out Jarrell's input regarding his poems before he published them. In a letter to Jarrell fromLowell wrote, "I suppose we shouldn't swap too many compliments, but I am heavily in your debt.

Lowell was hospitalized many times throughout his adult life due to bipolar disorderthe mental condition then known as "manic depression". Saskia Hamiltonthe editor of Lowell's Lettersnotes, "Lithium treatment relieved him from suffering the idea that he was morally and emotionally responsible for the fact that he relapsed. However, it did not entirely prevent relapses And he was troubled and anxious about the impact of his relapses on his family and friends until the end of his life.

Lowell died from a heart attack in a taxicab in Manhattan on September 12,at the age of 60, while on his way to see his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Lowell's early poetry was "characterized by its Christian motifs and symbolism, historical references, and intricate formalism. Lowell's biography lowell robert book of poems, Land of Unlikeness was also highly influenced by Lowell's conversion to Catholicism, leading Tate to call Lowell "a Catholic poet" in his introduction to the volume.

InLowell received wide acclaim [ 68 ] [ 69 ] [ 70 ] [ 71 ] for his next book, Lord Weary's Castlewhich included five poems slightly revised from Land of Unlikeness and thirty new poems. Among the better-known poems in the volume are "Mr. That year, Lowell also was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. Randall Jarrell gave Lord Weary's Castle high praise, writing, "It is unusually difficult to say which are the best poems in Lord Weary's Castle : several are realized past changing, successes that vary only in scope and intensity--others are poems that almost any living poet would be pleased to have written Following soon after his success with Lord Weary's CastleLowell served as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from to a position now known as the U.

Poet Laureate. InLowell published The Mills of the Kavanaughswhich centered on its biography lowell robert title poem and failed to receive the high praise that his previous book had received. Although it received a generally positive review in The New York TimesRandall Jarrell gave the book a mixed review. I doubt that many readers will think them real.

The poems in Life Studies were written in a mix of free and metered verse, with much more informal language than he had used in his first three books. Rosenthallabeled these poems "confessional" in a review of Life Studies that first appeared in The Nation magazine. SnodgrassSylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton. Lowell followed Life Studies with Imitationsa volume of loose translations of poems by classical and modern European poets, including RilkeMontaleBaudelairePasternakand Rimbaudfor which he received the Bollingen Poetry Translation Prize.

However, critical response to Imitations was mixed and sometimes hostile as was the case with Vladimir Nabokov 's public response to Lowell's Mandelstam translations. This translation was Lowell's first attempt at translating a play, and the piece received a generally positive review from The New York Times. Broadway director and theater critic Harold Clurman wrote that Lowell's Phaedra was "a close paraphrase of Racine with a slightly Elizabethan tinge; it nevertheless renders a great deal of the excitement--if not the beauty--which exists in the original.

The s saw Lowell move to New York. In he published Imitations, a collection of loose translations of poems by Baudelaire, Rilke, and Homer, among others. In he published his collection For the Union Deadwhere he found he was once again inspired to write in meter. In he published a collection of four plays, three of which were adapted from short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne and one from a novella by Herman Melville.

These plays, as well as many of the poems from For the Union Dead, deal with struggles and power structures; this fits with Lowell's political involvement at the time. Inhe famously and publicly declined Lyndon Johnson's invitation to the White House Arts Festival, in protest against the war in Vietnam.

Biography lowell robert: Robert Traill Spence Lowell

Inhe published a book called Near the Ocean, which was a collection of formal sequences, and a translation of Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound. In Lowell published a volume of sonnets called Notebookin which he hoped to link the political, the personal, the historical, and the spiritual. Lowell considered the book one continuous poem. In Lowell moved to England, where he taught at Essex University.