The life of Robert Lowell

Robert Lowell (19 17- 1977), also known as robert lowell. American poet is famous for his exquisite and complicated lyric poems, rich language use and social criticism. Lowell was born in a noble family in Boston. His distant ancestors and close relatives include a Harvard president, an astronomer, percival Lowell, a19th century poet, James Russell Lowell and an imagist poetess, amy lowell. Lowell entered Harvard University on 1935. Influenced by formalistic poetics, 1937 transferred to Kenyon College in Ohio, where he studied under the new critic John Crowe ransom and began to devote himself to poetry creation with "neat form and difficult content". 1940, Lowell graduated from college with honors and married the Catholic novelist Jean Stafford. At the same time, Lowell also experienced doubts about his personal religious beliefs. Because he hated Puritanism and liked the value of amassing wealth too much, he briefly gave up Puritanism and turned to Roman Catholicism. However, Lowell did not completely sever his relationship with Puritanism. On the contrary, the Puritan tradition has always occupied an important position in his poems.

After graduating from Lowell University, he studied as a graduate student for one year under the guidance of famous literary theorists and critics of Louisiana State University, namely Collins Brooks and Robert Pan Warren. 1943 was imprisoned for five months for refusing to perform military service in World War II. 1944, Lowell published his first book of poetry, The Impossible Land, which described a world in crisis and his expectation of seeking spiritual liberation. 1946 published Lord Tired's Castle, which was well received and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. 195 1 year, a long narrative poetry anthology "The Mill of Cabano Family" was published, which tells a Greek legend, but the background is New England in the United States. Since then, he has been teaching poetry at Boston University. His students include Sylvia Plath and anne sexton, who later became poets. During this period, Lowell was often troubled by schizophrenia and had to stay in the neurological rehabilitation center for a period of time. 1957 went to the west coast of the United States to recite poems. He was moved by Howl recited by allen ginsberg, a beat poet, and turned to walt whitman and william carlos williams's free verse style. Life Research, published in 1959 and awarded the National Book Award in 1960, reveals Lowell's inner pain and suffering, and marks a great change in Lowell's poetic style. This collection of poems made him an important representative of the confessional poetry school in the 1950s. In a group of free and blank poems, he expressed his life experience and psychological changes frankly and simply. In the famous poem Memories of West Street and Lepke, he recalled his frenzied youth and prison life from the calm 1950s. In the poem "Skunk Time", he used complex images to reflect the pain of alienation and self-help and liberation in despair. These autobiographical poems are full of real life experiences and plots, and the language is simple, cordial and touching, and their influence makes the so-called "confession poems" a temporary fashion.

Lowell participated in anti-war and democratic activities in the 1960s when he taught at Harvard University from 1963 to 1977. 1965 refused the invitation of President lyndon johnson's White House banquet to protest against American foreign policy. 1967 joined the ranks of opposing the Vietnam War and marched into the Pentagon. During this period, he published Poems for Trade Union Deaths (1964), Close to the Ocean (1967) and Notes (1967-68). 1973 published a collection of poems named Dolphin, which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1974). The Old Glory (1965), a dramatic trilogy adapted from the stories of Hawthorne and Melville, makes a historical survey of American culture.