The Letters of Robert Lowell

by Lowell, Robert; Hamilton, Saskia

• ISBN13: 9780374530341
• ISBN10: 0374530343
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-20
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

One of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, Robert Lowell was also a prolific letter writer who corresponded with many of the remarkable writers and thinkers of his day, including Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Hannah Arendt, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Edmund Wilson. These letters, conversations in writing, document the evolution of Lowell's work and illuminate another side of the intimate life that was the subject of so many of his poems: his deep friendships with other writers; the manic-depressive illness he struggled to endure and understand; his marriages to three prose writers; and his engagement with politics and the antiwar movement of the 1960s.The Letters of Robert Lowellshows us, in many cases for the first time, the private thoughts and passions of a figure unrivaled in his influence on American letters.

Author Biography

Robert Lowell (1917–77) was the renowned and controversial author of many books of poetry, including Day by Day (FSG, 1977), For the Union Dead (FSG, 1964), and Life Studies (FSG, 1959).

Table of Contents

Introduction: "I Was Naked Without My Line-Ends"	p. vii
A Note on the Text and Selection	p. xxiii
Chronology	p. xxv
1936-1940	p. 1
Education at Harvard and Kenyon Colleges
Marriage to Jean Stafford
1940-1946	p. 27
Writing of Land of Unlikeness and Lord Weary's Castle
Imprisonment for refusing military induction
1946-1949	p. 55
Separation from Stafford
Writing of The Mills of the Kavanaughs
1949-1954	p. 133
Preparation of Poems 1938-1949
Marriage to Elizabeth Hardwick
1954-1959	p. 207
Writing of Life Studies and Imitations
Birth of Harriet Lowell
1959-1966	p. 349
Writing of Imitations, The Old Glory, Phaedra, For the Union Dead, and Near the Ocean
1967-1970	p. 481
Writing of Notebook 1967-68
1970-1977	p. 535
Writing of the Dolphin and Day by Day
Separation from Hardwick
Birth of Sheridan Lowell
Marriage to Caroline Blackwood
Notes	p. 675
Lowell's Addresses	p. 805
Location of Letters and Manuscripts	p. 807
Selected Bibliography	p. 811
Acknowledgments	p. 817
Index	p. 819
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