The Fading Smile: Poets In Boston From Robert Lowell To Sylvia Plath [Paperback]

Davison Peter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 1996

This extraordinary account, by a participant who knew them all, offers vivid reminiscences of Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich, Stanley Kunitz, Sylvia Plath, Richard Wilbur, Anne Sexton, W.S. Merwin, and many others who interacted with each other and shaped American poetry at mid-century. Illustrated.

Product Details

• Paperback: 346 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. (March 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393313581
• ISBN-13: 978-0393313581
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,264,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( P ) > Plath, Sylvia

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Low-Down on the High-Toned Poets of the Boston Fifties, July 11, 2000

By 

J. McFarland "jbmcfar" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fading Smile: Poets In Boston From Robert Lowell To Sylvia Plath (Paperback)

In this juicy, lively memoir of the Boston poetry scene in the 1950's, Davison dishes the dirt not only on himself but also on such luminaries as Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Robert Frost. The decade of the 1950's was a time of delirious creativity for these poets perched on the threshold of fame and notoriety, and at the center of the vortex sat Robert Lowell, brilliant teacher, mentor and model of the wounded artist. Davison's group portrait shows men dominating these mythologized poetic years with the women cajoling, wheedling and flirting to be noticed, and then, once they had the men's attention, stepping forward with fierce work to be taken seriously. As readers will see, Plath and Sexton were up to any challenge and left behind for posterity both their great works and tales of their wild vamping exploits. Although Davison makes no secret that everybody in the group drank like fish and acted out with impunity, he ultimately celebrates those years as the apex of his social and creative life, a time populated by people of immense charisma and talent. The book is simply a love letter to the difficult geniuses of one of the great moments in 20th century American literary history.