Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Chapter 22 The Twentieth Century Begins
- Chapter 23 Robert Frost and Tradition
- Chapter 24 T. S. Eliot
- Chapter 25 William Carlos Williams
- Chapter 26 Finding “Only Words” Mysterious
- Chapter 27 Marianne Moore and the Printed Page
- Chapter 28 The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
- Chapter 29 The Romantic and Anti-Romantic in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
- Chapter 30 Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the East Coast Projectivists
- Chapter 31 Langston Hughes and His World
- Chapter 32 The Objectivists and the Left
- Chapter 33 “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
- Chapter 34 Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling
- Chapter 35 Writing the South
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Chapter 33 - “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Theodore Roethke, and the Middle-Generation Poets
from Part III - Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Chapter 22 The Twentieth Century Begins
- Chapter 23 Robert Frost and Tradition
- Chapter 24 T. S. Eliot
- Chapter 25 William Carlos Williams
- Chapter 26 Finding “Only Words” Mysterious
- Chapter 27 Marianne Moore and the Printed Page
- Chapter 28 The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
- Chapter 29 The Romantic and Anti-Romantic in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
- Chapter 30 Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the East Coast Projectivists
- Chapter 31 Langston Hughes and His World
- Chapter 32 The Objectivists and the Left
- Chapter 33 “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
- Chapter 34 Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling
- Chapter 35 Writing the South
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Summary
Robert Lowell was the most esteemed American poet of his era, enjoying a reputation comparable to that of his great modernist predecessors T.S.Eliot and William Butler Yeats. Lowell's influence on later generations continues to be felt and of the middle-generation poets he is second only to Bishop in this regard. Lowell was drawn to address the turmoil of his era in no small measure because his own life was itself manifestly turbulent. The careers of John Berryman and Theodore Roethke parallel that of Lowell in several crucial ways. Although both were slightly older than Lowell, Roethke was born in 1908, and Berryman in 1914, they rose to their greatest prominence, as Lowell did, in the 1950s and 1960s. Berryman remained rather uncomfortably close to his mother throughout his life, and the death of his father became one of the overarching concerns of The Dream Songs.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry , pp. 750 - 774Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014