Manic power: Robert Lowell and his circle

by Jeffrey Meyers

Manic Robert Lowell and His Jeffrey Manic Robert Lowell and His Arbor FIRST First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Arbor House, 1987. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with light shelf wear, previous owner inscription on the front flyleaf, and offsetting to rear pastedown. Dust jacket is very good with light shelf wear and sticker residue on the front cover. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 362043 Biography & Letters We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1987

About the author

Jeffrey Meyers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has recently been given an Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Thirty of his books have been translated into fourteen languages and seven alphabets, and published on six continents. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Reviews

[Nicolas Shump · Rating 3 out of 5]

Myers is a well-respected biographer who has written on a variety of poets, novelists, and other writers, but this is a classic example of an author making his materials fit his thesis. While this is a good read, Myers' work is shoddy on scholarship. I've read enough of the poetry and secondary sources on both Berryman and Lowell to know that this is a disservice to both of them and their work. The section on Randall Jarrell and Theodore Roethke I can say less about.
This work has an obvious debt to Nietzsche's Dionysian/Apollonian paradigm. By claiming that these writers "suffer" for their art, he discounts the importance and influence of mental illness, alcoholism, and other factors like family history. A fascinating case study, but I can't imagine that serious scholars of these poets would give his thesis much credence. It is a considerable critical leap.
A better work covering similar ground is Bruce Bawer's The Middle Generation: The Lives and Poetry of Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, and Robert Lowell.