Lowell

Abstract

The problems with which Robert Lowell contends are twofold. The first is that the end of the dandy’s quest, on which he embarks with Life Studies, and on whose Baudelairean ancestry Lowell’s critics offer no adequate commentary,¹ is found, as Baudelaire insists, in the death of the poet.² Lowell does not die as a poet: he must therefore discover a way of making his disability consistent with his ambition. The second problem casts light on the first, for it has to do with the use of the first person singular pronoun.