Robert Lowell

Overview

Considered the leading poet of his generation, Robert Lowell in his early work examined history — employing the past to make commentaries on the present. In the 1950s, the poet began to merge public with personal history. Following the lead of the so-called confessional poets, his own style shifted from densely textured formalism to the more open structures and autobiographical subject matter that would characterize a great deal of American poetry to the present day.