The Structure and Unity of Robert Lowell's Life Studies

Abstract

<p>The major emphasis of this thesis is a detailed explication and analysis of Robert Lowell's Life Studies. This volume of poetry, while not being ignored by critics, has been subjected to incomplete and often distorted analysis. I have read and analyzed this volume of poetry as if it were one long poem, as Lowell indicated that it should be read.</p> <p>What my sustained reading has illuminated is something other critics have noticed, commented upon, but consistently failed to elaborate upon in detail: the unity and consistency of the poetry. What structures this vision, this world-view, is a complex symbol system, leitmotifs, verbal echoes and historical and social conceptions.</p> <p>I have explored the poetic interweaving of the symbolic structures, the historical conceptions that inform the poetry, and, indeed, the very placement of the poems themselves in order to demonstrate that the vision presented in the poetry is a compelling and thoughtful one. So much so that I rank it with those other testaments of our age, The Waste Land and The Cantos. Whatever contributions ny thesis has made to knowledge is as yet undetermined. What can be said with some degree of certainty is this: this thesis has extended Lowpll scholarship in that many of the alleged mysteries or obscurities in Lowell's verse will, when this thesis is consulted, appear less mysterious, less obscure.</p>