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关键词：罗伯特•洛威尔，诗歌性结尾，美国当代诗歌
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments i
Abstract ii
摘要 iii
1 Introduction 1
2 Poetic Closure 3
2.1 Formal Structure and Closure 4
2.2 Thematic Structure and Closure 5
3 Rober Lowell and His Closures 7
3.1 The Poet 7
3.2 His Endings 9
4 Robert Lowell’s Poems and Their Closure 11
4.1 The Early Poems 11
4.1.1 “The Quaker Graveyard” in Lord Weary’s Castle 11
4.1.2 The Poetic Structure and Closure of this Poem 12
4.2 The Late Poems 15
4.2.1 “Skunk Hour” in Life Studies 16
4.2.2 The Poetic Structure and Closure of this Poem 17
4.3 Other Poems 20
5 Conclusion 21
Bibliography 22
1 Introduction
Closure plays a crucial role in poetry. It gives the reason for created images, senses and intentions of poet to stimulate the reaction and echoing of the audience. Among all poetic works in literary history, notably, the endings of Robert Lowell are of a nature of mystery, confusion and inspiration; they are worth of a closer looking into their poetic characteristics and artistic features.
Beginning, body and ending – any work of art considered “complete” contains these three parts. As everyone knows, a beginning is hard and of undoubting significance, but the importance of an artistic ending is sometimes underestimated. The ending, or closure, of a work of art is normally a sufficient and satisfying finish within a sophisticatedly planned structure, leading the audience to feel and sense the artist’s intention. It is crucial to every sort of art. In a musical piece with a delicately designed structure, the flows of melodies dancing along to rhythms never leave your mind blank after the last drop of note; instead, like sonata No.14 of Beethoven, it leaves you a vision of gentle and lonely sorrow, a long lasting dream. With no exception, the closure of a poem, if complying with wish of the poet, is meant to give the reader/performer both a farewell and a string that drags his thought back –
Pleasant enough,
Voi ch’entrate, and your life is in your hands. (Robert Lowell, “The Exile’s Return”)
A poetic closure, or a conclusion in a poem, generally speaking, is welcomed when a certain structure is strictly constructed by a principle, which, easily and possibly, leads the observers to perceive the implying termination of a flow: a flow of logic, emotion, time, or even consciousness. The effect as such brings a poem into a successful state of closure. However, the states vary in different aspects: some make the observer feel joyful while some make them gloomy, some might arouse a sense of great happiness and excitement, some might trap readers in a mind state of meditation and confusion. A certain number of Robert Lowell’s works are of the last effect, and cause readers non-stop pondering.
There are so many attractions of Robert Lowell’s poetry: the apocalyptic view of history, a complex view of self and family drama for his particular adventure of life. No artist creates apart from his life. This is especially the case for Robert Lowell, whose late works are highly autobiographical, who believes “the artist’s existence becomes his art,” and profoundly regarded as the most influential and successful poet after World War II. His works, though their style altered, radically changed the American literary landscape. Randall Jarrell once praised The Lord Weary’s Castle, “[…] one or two of these poems, I think, will be read as long as men remember English.” (1999:168) It is the entangling historical and religious figures and their implications which attract me, the jumbling images of fantasy and reality which interest me. A poet with so much experience has so much to express. As for Lowell, expression is in the form of a flow of thought, rich but unexpected, before the ending comes. There are other many reasons for some people to avoid his poems: some resemble the highly strict and formal style of Eliot and Allen Tate, and are complexly symbolic and ambiguous, which caused Randall Jarrell to remark once that Lowell “beats Empson at his own game” (Axelrod, 1978:65) What’s more, in order to fully understand Lowell’s poetry, one must give high value to his rather complicated life experience: special family roots, growing up as an only-child in a Bostonian family, persisting on living a life of art, winning three Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards for poetry; three marriages, one time imprisoned but considered to have a controversial political stance, several times confined in mental hospitals, and long term suffering from depression and alcoholism. Nonetheless, the attractions and the challenges both appeal to me, pique my curiosity about Robert Lowell, his life and his thoughts. While savoring his words and lines, some particular endings of his poems appear to be extraordinarily astonishing, unexpected or even shocking, and therefore result in triggering my will to take a closer look at these intriguing finishes.