The Letters of Robert Lowell [Paperback]

Robert Lowell (Author), Saskia Hamilton (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2007

One of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, Robert Lowell was also a prolific letter writer who corresponded with many of the remarkable writers and thinkers of his day, including Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Hannah Arendt, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Edmund Wilson. These letters, conversations in writing, document the evolution of Lowell's work and illuminate another side of the intimate life that was the subject of so many of his poems: his deep friendships with other writers; the manic-depressive illness he struggled to endure and understand; his marriages to three prose writers; and his engagement with politics and the antiwar movement of the 1960s. The Letters of Robert Lowell shows us, in many cases for the first time, the private thoughts and passions of a figure unrivaled in his influence on American letters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Already excerpted in the New Yorker and elsewhere, these letters have been awaited at least since Ian Hamilton's monumental 1985 biography of Lowell (1917– 1977). Brilliant, intimate, free, sculpted, various and wildly desirous of communication, the letters were worth the wait. The letters to Randall Jarrell and John Berryman have a peculiar professional intimacy. Those to his various wives, particularly Elizabeth Hardwick, have a raw pleading that often centers on the aftermath of episodes of mania or depression, but they never veer into bathos. The letters to Elizabeth Bishop form the core of the collection, and they are extraordinary, particularly the letters describing Maine, where both summered (though almost never at the same time): Lowell's eye for physical detail and feel for emotional valence seem directly wired into his prose. There are love letters to an Italian mistress, and lovely, frank letters in friendship to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Lowell corresponded at one time or another with many major modernists (Eliot, Pound, Frost, Williams); watching Lowell simultaneously assert, defer and posture without obsequiousness is fascinating. Over the course of this vast volume, Lowell's reading, moods, professional obligations, political engagements, family life and final sense of isolation come through with often searing clarity. Even for those who don't care for Lowell's verse (or any verse), this is a major epistolary life. Photos not seen by PW. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Given his status as a major American poet, Robert Lowell's manic depression, friendships with prominent people, and influence on other poets, including Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, have been well documented. Now, with this monumental volume of his letters to friends, family, peers, teachers, and even political leaders, those facets of his life are further illuminated. Lowell's correspondence offers personal thoughts and confessions, but it also embodies a calculated recognition of audience, meaning that his letters seem more carefully crafted than mere communication requires. And one of the most fascinating aspects of this collection is its documentation of the contact Lowell had with so many incredibly talented writers. From Robert Frost to Elizabeth Bishop to Flannery O'Connor, Allen Ginsberg, and Ezra Pound, Lowell had his finger on the pulse of writing during his lifetime and was motivated to stay in the thick of literary movements. Mainly for readers intrigued or inspired by Lowell, this collection is an invaluable primary resource, supplement to Lowell biographies, and companion to his fascinating poetry. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 888 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (March 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374530343
• ISBN-13: 978-0374530341
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,723,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful letters from a now-distant past, August 2, 2005

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Letters of Robert Lowell (Hardcover)

This big collection of letters is remarkable in so many ways. Lowell was a tireless and prolific correspondent and never dull. He expressed love, wonder, and a surprisingly cheerful interest in mundane things and events. He wrote, for example, to Elizabeth Bishop, congratulating her (somewhat self-consciously) on her weight loss, among many other achievements. To Elizabeth Hardwick (second of his three wives) he sent tender and intimately newsy letters - often with an ache. Randall Jarrell, another friend, received a letter that began "Lying awake in bed the other night after my reading, I thought of the joy of seeing you."

Lowell would have loved email: he complains every now and then about the slowness of the mails, especially between the US and Europe. He is by turns thrilling and everyday in these letters, and often tender and loving.

Much has been made posthumously of Lowell's bipolar disorder. It's sad and sweet to read his notes to his mother. After beginning "psycho-therapy" in the late 1940's he writes to her that "I've been trying to understand my first six or seven years, and have many questions to ask you." He is uncynical and open. After her death in 1954 (also documented in letters) he had a psychotic break during which, as ever, he wrote letters.

Editor Saskia Hamilton has arranged these chronologically so you can read them as a sort of a biography. This is a terrific window on Lowell and his world.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What Next?, December 1, 2005

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Letters of Robert Lowell (Hardcover)

Saskia Hamilton, a New York based poet, proves her mettle as an editor with this fat collection of Robert Lowell's letters.

He wrote great letters, and this surprised me a bit, but every one of them shows an insane desire to please, to flatter, to make the recipient feel good about himself or herself; he's marvelously attentive to nuance and knows exactly how to push the right buttons of his correspondents, telling them just what they want to hear. And he's sincere, which is a plus. Over and over again I was impressed by the facility with which he was blessed, or maybe he worked it up over time, because the earliest letters aren't that great, it's not until he gets into the 1940s that the familiar Lowell manner takes over.

This volume explains so much! Mostly how it was that, with all the truly awful things Lowell did, people still loved him. If it wasn't red-baiting the director of Yaddo and forcing the board to impeach her in 1947, it was publishing all those poems about Elizabeth and Harriet against their wishes, or it was wanting to marry Jackie Kennedy or whatever. Apparently all these were episodes of a manic nature in his bipolar disorder, including the car wreck that permanently disfigured wife #1 Jean Stafford. Well, of course none of them were really his fault but still. And now this book of letters unveils his real private voicem, gently coaxing reassuring, making sense of the world, interpolating, and penetrating the consciousness of whoever he was writing to at the time. The older and the famous got one style of letter; his peers got another.

Hamilton's notes are sparse, but seem sensible. However printing over 700 of these letters is out of control. Like the Bidart-edited POEMS, the book physically becomes too big to handle, it takes two strong men just to lift it off the shelf. Why so many? Plus, one gets the feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the letters go, and that in a year's time we may have the first of many annual sequels, "More Letters by Robert Lowell." Never underestimate how many times a manic genius (with, as he boasts, unearned income and lots of free time) will reach out to others to make himself heard and understood. The word is the life.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, June 2, 2008

By 

J. Cohen - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Letters of Robert Lowell (Paperback)

This collection of Robert Lowell letters is an excellent supplement to Lowell's Collected Poems. Like the Collected Poems, this book is heavily annotated (which is a very good thing) and well-edited. The letters are divided into 8 sections, with each section covering a period of 5-7 years, and grouped according to major events or publications in Lowell's life.

The letters are fascinating and wonderfully written. With the annotation, they're also easy to follow, and you really get a sense of what it must have been like to be one of the poets in Lowell's inner circle. You also get an up-close and personal sense of Lowell as a human being: his ambitions, frustrations, and judgments are all very clearly spelled out.

I would highly recommend this book to any serious fan of Lowell's poetry. It would also be an excellent resource for anyone interested in the American poetry scene in the 1950's and 60's.