At the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Harvard Square, 1965
Born
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (1917-03-01)March 1, 1917 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died
September 12, 1977(1977-09-12) (aged 60) New York City, U.S.
Resting place
Stark Cemetery Dunbarton, New Hampshire, U.S.
Occupation
Poet
Education
Harvard University Kenyon College (BA)
Period
1944–1977
Genre
American 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
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (/ˈloʊəl/; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the Mayflower. His family, past and present, were important subjects in his poetry. Growing up in Boston also informed his poems, which were frequently set in Boston and the New England region.[1] The literary scholar Paula Hayes believes that Lowell mythologized New England, particularly in his early work.[2]
Lowell stated, "The poets who most directly influenced me ... were Allen Tate, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams. An unlikely combination! ... but you can see that Bishop is a sort of bridge between Tate's formalism and Williams's informal art."[3] Lowell wrote in both formal, metered verse as well as free verse; his verse in some poems from Life Studies and Notebook fell somewhere in between metered and free verse.
After the publication of his 1959 book Life Studies, which won the 1960 National Book Award and "featured a new emphasis on intense, uninhibited discussion of personal, family, and psychological struggles", he was considered an important part of the confessional poetry movement.[4][5] However, much of Lowell's work, which often combined the public with the personal, did not conform to a typical "confessional poetry" model. Instead, Lowell worked in a number of distinctive stylistic modes and forms over the course of his career.[5]
He was appointed the sixth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, where he served from 1947 until 1948.[6][7] In addition to winning the National Book Award, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947 and 1974, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, and a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1947. He is "widely considered one of the most important American poets of the postwar era."[5] His biographer Paul Mariani called him "the poet-historian of our time" and "the last of [America's] influential public poets."[8]
^Hamilton, Ian. Robert Lowell: A Biography. Faber & Faber, 1982.
^Hayes, Paula. Robert Lowell and the Confessional Voice. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2013. p. 37.
^Kunitz, Stanley. "Talk with Robert Lowell." The New York Times. October 4, 1964. p. BR34.
^National Book Award Website "National Book Awards – 1960"
^ abc"Robert Lowell (1917-1977)." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 124. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. p 251.
^"Robert Lowell". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved May 30, 2013.
^"Poet Laureate Timeline: 1953-1960". Library of Congress. 2008. Retrieved December 19, 2008.
^Mariani, Paul. Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. 10.
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (/ˈloʊəl/; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could...
The Lowell family is one of the Boston Brahmin families of New England, known for both intellectual and commercial achievements. The family had emigrated...
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poets who redefined American poetry in the 1950s and 1960s, including RobertLowell, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, and W. D. Snodgrass. In 1959...
until his death. Citkowitz has four half-siblings. Her stepfather was RobertLowell, an American poet. Citkowitz attended a boarding school in Devon, South...
where she was a student at Newnham College. Plath later studied with RobertLowell at Boston University, alongside poets Anne Sexton and George Starbuck...
Lowell House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University, located at 10 Holyoke Place facing Mount Auburn Street between Harvard...
directed by Jackie Earle Haley in his directorial debut and written by RobertLowell. The film stars Michael Pitt, Dan Stevens, John Travolta, Christopher...
RobertLowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T. B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown...
a literary ‘therapeutic outlet.' RobertLowell's Life Studies, an autobiographical suite of poems detailing Lowell's upbringing and personal family life...
she had an affair with Robert Silvers, the founder and co-editor of The New York Review of Books. Her third husband, RobertLowell, was an influence on...
Peter Taylor, and poet RobertLowell. Lowell and Jarrell remained good friends and peers until Jarrell's death. According to Lowell biographer Paul Mariani...
Robert Traill Spence Lowell (1816–1891) Robert T.S. Lowell (1860–1887) Robert T.S. Lowell (1887–1950), naval officer RobertLowell (1917–1977), Pulitzer...
which dramatized letters between American poets Elizabeth Bishop and RobertLowell, featured two different actors each night of the show's run. Later that...
The University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell and UML) is a public research university in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a satellite campus in Haverhill...
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England. New England poet RobertLowell referred to both Shaw and the Shaw Memorial in the poem "For the Union Dead", which Lowell published in his 1964 collection...
Union Dead is a book of poems by RobertLowell that was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1964. It was Lowell's sixth book. Notable poems from the...
Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the...
Lowell Fulson (March 31, 1921 – March 7, 1999) was an American blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. He also recorded for...
most important poets of the post-World War II generation that included RobertLowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Delmore Schwartz. Soon thereafter, the press...
216–17. Robert C. Petersen, 'Sullivan, "Allen Tate: A Recollection" (Book Review)', Southern Quarterly, 28:2 (Winter 1990), p. 62. RobertLowell, Robert Lowell...
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