Not for an Age? Robert Lowell’s Historical Moment

AbstractLiterary periodization is still a useful practice, but in constant need of revision. As we approach the centenary of Robert Lowell’s birth in 2017, a critical reexamination of the contested concept of an ‘age of Lowell’ is required, both because of its unwarranted, apparently magisterial claim and its untapped potential. This essay recalls the historical circumstances of Irvin Ehrenpreis’s coining of that term and its fraught reception history. Three arguments remain significant: Lowell’s historical position and his own, strongly historicizing poetry changed the poetic discourse of the 1960s and beyond; Lowell participated in and helped shape the ‘identitarian’ turn of the 1960s, and Lowell’s 1973 volume History marked the conclusion of his age-crafting and personal myth-making project. The essay concludes with a brief look at Lowell’s biological age, heretofore rarely considered in Lowell studies. The ‘age of Lowell’ deserves a fresh interpretation.