Michael Hofmann

Robert Lowell struggled all his life to elude his rarefied Boston heritage

He abandoned Harvard, converted to Catholicism, married twice, became a conscientious objector and – not least – devoted himself to poetry

The infant Robert Lowell with his father, the put- upon naval commander who struggled to ‘teach himself manhood’. Credit Alamy 
issue 17 December 2022
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  • Memoirs

    Robert Lowell, edited by Steven Gould Axelrod and Grzegorz Kosc

    Faber, pp. 387, £40

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