Biography, mania and mysticism

Out of basically voyeuristic interest, I dug up a Robert Lowell biography at the university library today. Some of his person comes through in the letters to Bishop, but from the sketchy details of his mania and instability in the introduction, you get the impression that there must have been other sides of his character not represented. From the biography, that indeed seems to be the case. I read (quickly) the Hamilton 1982 biography which I found about as readable as a set of note cards – very choppy and full of too many long citations – but also detailed and informative (I’d like to see if there’s another better version?). Given my latent interest in mysticism, I was intrigued by the descriptions how in certain fits of mania, Lowell ‘renewed’ his Catholicism and became obsessed with prayer; the biographer says he “confused religion and sexuality" (158). Certainly that “symptom” would describe the behavior of certain mystics… the question is then whether they shared something psychologically with Lowell or whether Lowell perhaps read too much mysticism and unconsciously imitated them.

Having sated my biographical craving – in fact, I feel a bit abashed now, having actually been overwhelmed and terrified by Lowell’s character even at this distance – I’m going to turn back to the poetry now. I stumbled on a used copy of his complete works at Magus books, and read “Falling Asleep over the Aeneid” while standing up in the bookstore. That read certainly confirmed it was worth the purchase.