Lowell, Robert (Vol. 2) - Lowell, Robert 1917–
Lowell, Robert 1917–
A Pulitzer Prize-winning major American poet, Lowell is also a playwright and translator. His works include Lord Weary's Castle, The Mills of the Kavanaughs, For the Union Dead, and Imitations. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 9-12, rev. ed.)
Lowell … seems too unable or unwilling to let words create a basis of meaning by themselves, and his poems often feel more hewn out than inspired, as if very little in them ever surprised Lowell himself. And when the wrestle with words and meanings becomes as gladiatorial and unsubmissive as this there is a real threat to the kind of reflection-within-experience which provides the basic strength of poetry, and which governs the unity and self-containment of any single poem and the shape it will most naturally assume. This comes out, I think, in the shape Lowell's poems actually have.
Colin Falck, "Dreams and Responsibilities," in...
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