num_pages: 211
description: In 1951, Robert Lowell published a long poem, "The Mills of the Kavanaughs," dealing obliquely with the collapse of his marriage to the novelist Jean Stafford. In 1973, he published The Dolphin, dealing directly with the collapse of his second marriage. In between his poetry underwent radical transformations in structure, style, diction, and purpose. Robert Lowell and Ovid examines these transformations as they relate not only to the Roman poet whose Metamorphoses Ezra Pound called "a sacred book" and "a safe guide in religion" but also to Dante and The Divine Comedy and Pound and the Cantos. The result for readers is a clearer understanding of the tensions that Lowell indicates tore apart his marriages and led to the creation of these works as well as his uses of "imitation," "the mythic method," and "classicism," and the traditions he and they derive from and a generation of American poets built upon.
language: English
title: Robert Lowell and Ovid
titlecomplete: Robert Lowell and Ovid
publisher: Xlibris Corp