The Collected Prose
by Robert Lowell
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This vast collection of Robert Lowell's uniformly vigorous and well-written essays, which first appeared in 1987, was edited and introduced by Robert Giroux, his longtime editor and friend. Ranging chronologically from a student paper on the "Iliad that Lowell composed in 1935 to the unfinished essay, "New England and Further," on which he was working when he died in 1977, "Collected Prose is a telling and fascinating compendium of the ideas, arguments, and opinions of one of modernity's show more most important poets. With many critical writings and book reviews concerning all manner of poets old and new (from Vergil and Ovid to Frost and Stevens, from Hopkins and "Epics" to Bishop and Plath) as well as recently discovered autobiographical writings, two extended interviews, and learned yet approachable musings on everything from the Gettyburg Address to the art and craft of translation, this prose ominbus is must-reading for all students and scholars of twentieth-century American literature. show lessTags
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Lowell was in no a sense a professional critic in the sense that Randall Jarrell or Allen Tate were. Nevertheless, these occasional pieces are written with passion, acuity, intellectual honesty, and erudition. The book is divided into three parts. The first part is a group of critical essays, mostly on poets who were his teachers, friends, or students (he seems to have known EVERYBODY). Sometimes these become almost memoirs, but all have charm and insight. In the middle section are more wide ranging essays on various literary topics, Several of these are published here for the first time. The final section is more personal with two very extended interviews and some improbably detailed childhood/family reminiscences.
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62+ Works 3,836 Members
Robert Lowell (1917-1977) was the renowned and controversial author of many books of poetry, including Day by Day (FSG, 1977), For the Union Dead (FSG, 1964), and Life Studies (FSG, 1959). Saskia Hamilton is the author of three books of poetry, including Corridor, She is the editor of The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert show more Lowell, and Their Circle and The Letters of Robert Lowell, and coeditor of Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. She teaches at Barnard College. show less
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- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 809.1 — Literature & rhetoric Literature, rhetoric & criticism History, description, critical appraisal of more than two literatures Poetry
- LCC
- PS3523 .O89 .A6 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1900-1960
- BISAC
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- 116
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- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.55)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
