Life Studies by Robert Lowell PDF

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These tutorial notes focus on a range of poems from Lowell's Life Studies. The notes go through each poem and goes through the connotations and themes of the work. ...

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Life Studies by Robert Lowell W3 Notes made for seminar Published 1959 The fourth book of poems – though most critics consider it his most important book Won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1960 His career was marked by his dramatic shifts in style Was interested in history which reflects in a lot of his poetry Lowell suffered from nervous breakdowns – which we would now classify as bipolar disorder Divorced in 1948 he married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick who was must help and inspiration during the writing of Life Studies – both writers living in New York

Part one Contains four poems similar to Lowell’s style in previous works Interpreted as a transition section signalling his move away from Catholicism At first glance it appears messy – Lowell’s style changes and his rhyming patterns vary throughout each stanza and line of each work it seems / part one seems a rough outline of his feelings turning away from religion? It seems confused?

Beyond the Alps The poem is inspired by a trip from Rome to Paris he took with his wife, documenting his journey by train He captures his feelings towards his waning faith in Catholicism The lyric poem is written in stanzas of sonnets and in iambic pentameter – yet has irregular rhyming ABACCDEDFGGHHI ‘I left the City of God where it belongs’ He is literally leaving the Alps as he travels to Rome, yet figurately leaving his Catholicism behind into the unknown

The Bankers Daughter AABBCCDD rhyme scheme in the second stanza – the rest of the rhyming is irregular The poem is from the perspective of Marie de Medici after the assassination of her husband – this is included in a note before the poem begins A fairly comical poem with funny rhymes ‘King Henry pirouetted on his heel and jested ‘Look my cow’s producing veal’’ ‘Murder cut him short’ ‘The King of France is dead who’ll give the lover of the land a bed?’ The last stanza is 27 lines – a very irregular form

Inauguration Day: January 1953 The inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower was on the 20th of January 1953 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/poetry-for-presidents Lowell write a letter from Rome to the literary critic W.F van Leeuwen talking about his upset over Eisenhower’s success in becoming the next President The election is symbolically discouraging. We were frantic Stevenson fans, buying three papers a day, reading the complete speeches, etc. I think Stevenson was the most human, intelligent and decent person who has run for president in my lifetime. Eisenhower isn’t a bad man, I think, just formless, banal, efficient—smiles without personal wit or passions. He’s so appallingly typical—I come back to my figure of a country looking at itself in the mirror for instruction. A sombre sonnet – placed in New York city which was known to vote Stevenson Offers a sweep of history starting with the statue of Peter Stuyvesant one of the city’s Dutch commanders Eisenhower appears at the end to lead a nation imbued with the memory of those deaths Refers to his nickname ‘Ike’ echoing his thoughts of Eisenhower as more of a TV personality than a President ‘the Republicans summons Ike’ An obsession – manic episode? A Mad Negro Soldier Confined in Munich’ http://www.galaxyimrj.com/V2/n5/Sharma.pdf The poem is from the point of view of a black soldier having a breakdown and shows the ‘disintegration of the world is shown through the window of psychological breakdown’ Written in a first-person narrative

Part Two A piece called 91 Revere Street – is the first and only significant passage of prose to appear in one of his books It centers around Lowell’s childhood when his family lived in Boston – focuses on his parents’ marriage as well as his relationship with his parents Notable characters are his great grandfather Mordecai Myers and his father’s navy buddy Commander Billy Harkness It sets the stage for the final part of his life studies of his family portraits The section was set as a therapeutic assignment suggested by his therapist It’s also stated that this prose exercise led him into a stylistic breakthrough of the poems in part IV He introduces Mordecai Myers his great grandfather a military man ‘His life was tame and honourable’

At first is hard to read – also is an account of Lowell so young we ask how relevant this is? Why are we reading such a young account of his life and what significance does this have? However you get a sense of Lowell’s family dynamic – his mother was the force of the household ‘Cousin Cassie only became a close relation in 1922. In that year she died.’ Lowell is only in third grade but he has a concept of popularity – ‘for the first time becoming a little more popular at school’ Story about toy soldiers ‘middle upper class, naval and Masonic fashion’ – his father His father grew up fatherless ‘Weelawaugh, wee-ee-eelawaugh!’ “but-and…’pp.20 to describe what he hears from his parents during the two years hi mother is trying to convince his father to quit the navy He bullies his friend Eric – and unapologetically describes his rudeness His father has to leave on xmas day to navy

Part Three This part is an ode to four writers; Hart Crane, Delmore Schwartz, George Santayana and Ford Madox Ford He considers all of them mentors at different stages of his career Devotional works of his heroes Ford Madox Ford To George Santayana To Delmore Schwartz Hart Crane

Part Four The majority of the poems and giving the subtitles Life Studies These are confessional poems and documents Lowell’s struggles with mental illness They also revolve around his family, particularly his parents troubled marriage His maternal grandfather Arthur Winslow also receives attention through poems Dunbarton and Grandparents Many poems are elegaic My Last Afternoon with Uncle Deveruex Winslow Dunbarton

Grandparents Elegiac Commander Lowell For his father – yet also dips into the troubling marriage of his parents Terminal days at Beverly Farms Describes the final times in his fathers illness Man and Wife

Critical response M. L. Rosenthal wrote a review when the term applied ‘confessional’ and led to the name of the school of confessional poetry Confessional poetry – emerged during 1950’s described as poetry of the personal or ‘I’ focusing on moments of individual experience and personal trauma / includes taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, sexuality and suicide – confessional poetry is also classified as confessional poetry / poets include Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Allen Ginsberg http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1373/robert-lowells-life-studies-the-examinationof-an-ailing-soul

Notes made in seminar Had a huge impact on literature Particularly the depiction of mental illness – the depiction of being institutionalised and bipolar disorder The term confessional poetry – Lowell did not like / raw and painful experiences Poets had written about madness – but not exposing themselves A theme of death in many of his poems – from the double perspective of a child written by Lowell / remembering the childhood experience More poetic than person – Lowell didn’t feel appropriate to call it confessional It also very guarded also personal and raw Boston Brahmin family – traces ancestors to founding fathers Imprisoned as a conscientious objector – made the front page of the New York Times / also opposed to Vietnam War mid to late 60’s went on the march at the Pentagon Treated with lithium at the age of 50 Frequently hospitalised – was cyclical sped up during summer became manic (fed into the myth of the genius poem) Often had affairs Includes verbatim letters of his estranged wife Elizabeth Hardwick in later poems

His grandfather was his father calls him that A very fraught relationship with his dad Start off with large public poems – the last one a psychological sign post Gradually tunnels in Prose of 91 Revere Street Four writers whom he knew Life Studies – stages dads death mothers death his child breakdown aftermath memories of jail marriage Waking in the Blue Rhyming couplet at the end – ‘mentally ill’ ironic distance from it / protesting his institutionalisation – he’s trapped there and in life – protest or not belonging? The phrase is a big label that’s what they’ve been told ‘my heart grows tense as though a harpoon were spearing for the kill’ – paranoia associations with Moby Dick Lots of animal imagery – zoo connotations? Cages trapped – reduced to these animals have sunk to animal level, a numb animal type life ‘What use is my sense of humour’ – separating himself from everyone else – again his relationship to the place All the characters are high achievers Ossified – turned to bone hardened ‘slightly too little nonsensical’ they don’t look mad enough /paranoia ‘thorough bread mental cases’ truly mad The decline of New England class ‘see the shaky future grow familiar Starts with an ironic distance by the end of it he recognises he will return and belongs there – then uses the word we ‘we are all old timers’ – working with incredible pressure on words carefully chosen words have multiple meanings Certain cyclical to the poem as his mental health is Image of the razor – Beyond the Alps ‘His electric razor purred’ connect to the razor imagery – a slow progression in the first poem we have a razor and a father Image clusters of razors throughout – several different types of image / everything is connected – connected to Oedipa in The Crying of the Lot 49 An oddly visual insight into bipolar – everything is overly patterned – an effort to control that weirdness Page 13 91 Revere Street ‘not an exhibition but a cauterisation of private material emotion’ Pearce – a way of controlling it cleaning it Is he using it to understand himself – to heal

Skunk Hour Written for his friend Elizabeth Bishop The new England elite – that’s dropped An ironic humour comedic tone ‘I myself am hell’ – Satan / Doctor Faustus Really is the darkest moment ‘My minds not right’ – is held back starts first with the social comedy Ends with an animal mum with fearlessness Repetition of the word ill in the rhyme – closest textual level is the word ill Retrospective? Cured writing? Its permeating his life / enwoven into the language of the poem French conceptual artist – Take Care of Yourself close to Lowell’s poems Hospital where he violates the trust of his ex wife and turns her letters into poems

Mental illness Beyond The Alps – razors / Inauguration Day / Mad Negro Soldier Confined at Munich / Waking in the Blue razors/ ???

‘Life Studies: Imagery, Form and Mental Illness’ The images throughout the work – the razor is a thread throughout the work as we progress the image gets scarier and scarier Beyond the Alps to Waking in the Blue / how the images Waking in the Blue – analysis Demise Downfall Deterioration...