American poet Robert Trail Spence Lowell, Jr. (1917-1977) was one of the most highly esteemed and honored poets of his day. Many still acclaim his work for its mastery of diverse literary form, intense expression of personal concern, and candid...

For some readers and critics Robert Lowell stood at the center of his literary generation, and by the mid 1960s one admirer, Irvin Ehrenpreis, was referring to "The Age of Lowell." One can see why. Lowell was associated with nearly all the important...

For some readers and critics the late Robert Lowell stood at the center of his literary generation, and by the mid-1960s one admirer, Irvin Ehrenpreis, was referring to "The Age of Lowell." One can see why. Lowell was associated with nearly all the...

The Return of Robert Lowell Robert Lowell. Collected Poems. Edited by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter. Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2003. 1186 pp. $45.00 Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed; the rising sun in war paint dyes us red; ...

Poet, draft resister, Harvard professor, mental patient, ambivalent son of one of New England's first families - Robert Lowell's poetry gives us all these personas. Beginning with his 1946 collection, "Lord Weary's Castle," through 1959's "Life Studies," 1964's "For the Union Dead," and continuing...

It has been almost two months since Norman Mailer died. "Before that he lived a big, loud life, which he spent asking questions, accumulating bruises and setting all kinds of people’s hair on fire," according to the Observer's Leon Neyfakh. Boxes full of papers of...

Elizabeth Hardwick, a Kentucky-born author and critic whose incisive prose and steady spirit helped her well fulfill her dream of becoming a "New York Intellectual," has died at age 91.Hardwick, who lived for decades on Manhattan's Upper West Side, died in her sleep Sunday night...

In the following essay, Hammer examines Lowell's artistic break from the influence of Allen Tate and the significance of Lowell's nervous breakdown as a metaphor for this schism as evident in Life Studies. "Lowell's 'breakdown' is itself a literary construction," according to Hammer.

In the following essay, Witek examines Lowell's search for personal identity and Freudian themes relating to his parents in the poetry of Life Studies and his autobiographical prose writings.

In the following essay, Tillinghast provides an overview of Lowell's literary career, artistic development, and critical reception.