Lost Puritan (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Paul Mariani
- First Published: 1994
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1917-1977
- Setting: Boston and New York
- Principal Characters: Robert Lowell, Charlotte Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Caroline Blackwood
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Mothers, Parents and children, Prisoners, Sex or sexuality, Authors or writers, New York City, Marriage, Poetry or poets, Fathers, Depression, mental, Catholics or Catholic Church, Pacifism
- Locales: Boston, MA, New York
The first question to ask about Paul Mariani’s biography of Robert Lowell is why there should be a new life of Lowell so soon after Ian Hamilton’s biography, Robert Lowell. Hamilton’s revelations about Lowell’s disruptive manic episodes and sexual adventures were startling when published in 1982. What can Mariani add to this scandalous presentation of the great American poet’s foibles? As it turns out, he has much to add. Mariani has more interviews with those who had a close relationship with Lowell and more letters to and by him, and he can draw on Lowell’s own...
[The entire page is 2214 words long]
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