Robert Lowell, Setting The River On Fire: A Darkness Altogether Lived

Product Description

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, Robert Lowell put his manic-depressive illness (now known as bipolar disorder) into the public domain, creating a new and arresting language for madness. Here Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison brings her expertise in mood disorders to bear on Lowell's story, illuminating not only the relationships among mania, depression, and creativity but also the details of how Lowell's illness and treatment influenced the great work that he produced (and often became its subject). Lowell's New England roots, early breakdowns, marriages to three eminent writers, friendships with other poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, many hospitalizations, and vivid presence as both a teacher and a maker of poems are all explored, as Jamison gives us the poet's life through a lens that focuses our understanding of his intense discipline, courage, and commitment to his art. Drawing upon a trove of new material and a psychologist's deep insight, Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Firedelivers a bold, sympathetic account of a poet who was-both despite and because of mental illness-a passionate, original observer of the human condition.In his Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, Robert Lowell put his manic-depressive illness (now known as bipolar disorder) into the public domain, creating a new and arresting language for madness. Here Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison brings her expertise in mood disorders to bear on Lowell's story, illuminating not only the relationships among mania, depression, and creativity but also the details of how Lowell's illness and treatment influenced the great work that he produced (and often became its subject). Lowell's New England roots, early breakdowns, marriages to three eminent writers, friendships with other poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, many hospitalizations, and vivid presence as both a teacher and a maker of poems are all explored, as Jamison gives us the poet's life through a lens that focuses our understanding of his intense discipline, courage, and commitment to his art. Drawing upon a trove of new material and a psychologist's deep insight, Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Firedelivers a bold, sympathetic account of a poet who was-both despite and because of mental illness-a passionate, original observer of the human condition.
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON is the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders and a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as an honorary professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is the author of the national best sellers An Unquiet Mind, Night Falls Fast, and Touched with Fire, and is coauthor of the standard medical text on manic-depressive illness, Manic-Depressive Illness- Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression. Dr. Jamison is a recipient of the Lewis Thomas Prize, the Rhoda and Barnard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health from the National Academy of Medicine, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.