Table Of ContentBERRYMAN AND LOWELL:
THE ART OF LOSING
Berrytnan and Lo-well
The Art of Losing
Stephen Matterson
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
© Stephen John Matterson 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1988
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Wessex Typesetters
(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)
Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Dat a
Matterson, Stephen
Berryman and Lowell: the art of losing.
1. Lowell, Robert-Criticism and
interpretation 2. Berryman, John
Criticism and interpretation
I. Title
811'.52 PS3523.089Z/
ISBN 978-1-349-09018-1 ISBN 978-1-349-09016-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09016-7
For Jean
with all of my love
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Chronologies xi
Introduction: Tumbles and Leaps 1
1 Beginning in Wisdom 15
2 Towards a Rhetoric of Destitution 35
3 Excellence and Loss 51
4 History and Seduction 70
5 Defeats and Dreams 92
Notes and References 107
Index 111
Vll
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Frances Arnold, my editor at Macmillan, and
the outside reader whose advice and comments helped to shape the
book. For special help and encouragement, I am personally grateful
to Ray Cowell, Jean Nee, Mike Scott, Larry Vonalt and John
Wakeley.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to copyright holders for
permission to quote the following: 'The Ball Poem' and excerpts
from 'Winter Landscape', 'Young Woman's Song', and 'The Statue'
from Short Poems and Homage to Mistress Bradstreet by John
Berryman. Copyright© 1940, 1946 by John Berryman. Copyright
Renewed © 1968 by John Berryman. Excerpts from His Toy, His
Dream, His Rest by John Berryman. Copyright© 1964, 1965, 1966,
1967, 1968 by John Berryman. Excerpt from Love & Fame by John
Berryman. Copyright© 1970 by John Berryman. Excerpt from 'The
Facts and Issues' from Delusions Etc. by John Berryman. Copyright
© 1969, 1971 by John Berryman. Copyright© 1972 by the Estate of
John Berryman. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, Inc., and by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Excerpts from the unpublished notebooks and letters of John
Berryman are taken from the John Berryman Collection, University
of Minnesota, and from The Houghton Library, Harvard University.
They are reprinted by permission of Kate Donahue, literary
executrix of the estate of John Berryman, Al Lathrop, curator of the
John Berryman Collection and joint executor of the estate of John
Berryman, and by permission of The Houghton Library.
Excerpts from 'As a Plane Tree by the Water', 'Colloquy in Black
Rock', 'The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket', 'In Memory of
Arthur Winslow', from Lord Weary's Castle and Poems 1938-49 by
Robert Lowell. Copyright © 1946, 1974 by Robert Lowell. Re
printed by permission of Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., and by
permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. Excerpts from 'The Mills of
the Kavanaughs', 'Mother Marie Therese', from The Mills of the
Kavanaughs and Poems 1938-49 by Robert Lowell. Copyright© 1951
by Robert Lowell; renewed 1979 by Harriet W. Lowell. Reprinted by
permission of Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., and Faber and
Faber Ltd.
'Father's Bedroom', excerpts from 'Inauguration Day, 1953',
ix
X Acknowledgements
'Beyond the Alps', 'The Banker's Daughter', from Life Studies by
Robert Lowell. Copyright© 1956, 1959 by Robert Lowell. 'Reading
Myself', 'The Nihilist as Hero', 'For John Berryman 1', 'End of a
Year' from History by Robert Lowell. Copyright© 1967, 1968, 1969,
1970, 1973 by Robert Lowell. Excerpt from 'Fishnet', from The
Dolphin by Robert Lowell. Copyright © 1973 by Robert Lowell.
Excerpts from 'For John Berryman', 'Grass Fires', 'Epilogue',
'Wellesley Free', 'Turtle', 'Fetus', 'Unwanted' from Day by Day by
Robert Lowell. Copyright © 1975, 1976, 1977 by Robert Lowell.
Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., and by
permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Excerpts from Robert Lowell's letters are taken from the John
Berryman Collection, University of Minnesota, and are reprinted by
permission of the Estate of Robert Lowell and Farrar Straus and
Giroux, Inc.
'My Papa's Waltz' from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke by
Theodore Roethke, copyright © 1942 by Hearst Magazines Inc.,
reprinted by permission of Doubleday and Company Inc., and by
permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
'Men Made Out of Words' from The Collected Poems of Wallace
Stevens by Wallace Stevens. Copyright© Wallace Stevens 1954.
Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and by
permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Stephen Matterson
Chronologies
JOHN BERRYMAN
1914 Born 25 October, McAlester, Oklahoma
1926 Suicide of Berryman's father; mother remarries
1932-6 Attended Columbia College, New York
193&--7 Attended Clare College, Cambridge
1939 Taught Wayne State University, Detroit
1940-3 Taught Harvard University
1940 'Twenty Poems' in Five Young American Poets
1942 Poems
Married to Eileen Mulligan
1943 Taught at Princeton
1944-5 Holds Rockefeller Foundation research fellowship
194&--51 Taught at Princeton
1947 Writes Berryman's Sonnets (published 1967)
1948 The Dispossessed
1950 Stephen Crane (critical biography)
1952-3 Holds Guggenheim Fellowship
1953 Homage to Mistress Bradstreet published in Partisan Review
1955 Begins to write Dream Songs
1955-72 Taught at University of Minnesota
1956 Divorced from Eileen Mulligan; married to Ann Levine
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet published in book form
1957 Awarded Harriet Monroe Poetry Prize
Son, Paul, born
1958 His Thought Made Pockets & The Plane Buckt
1959 Divorced from Ann Levine
1960 Edited Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller
1961 Married to Kate Donahue
1962 Daughter, Martha, born
1964 77 Dream Songs
1965 Pulitzer Prize awarded for 77 Dream Songs
196&--7 Living in Dublin
1967 Berryman's Sonnets
Short Poems
Wins awards from Academy of American Poets, National
Endowment for the Arts
xi
xii Chronologies
1968 His Toy, His Dream, His Rest
1969 National Book Award and Bollingen Prize awarded for His
Toy, His Dream, His Rest
Single volume edition of The Dream Songs
Appointed Regents' Professor, University of Minnesota
1970 Treatment for alcoholism
Love & Fame
1971 British, revised, version of Love & Fame
Second daughter, Sarah, born
1972 Suicide, 7 January, Minneapolis
Posthumous Publications
1972 Delusions Etc. Selected Poems 1938-1968
1973 Recovery (novel)
1976 The Freedom of the Poet (critical essays and short stories)
1977 Henry's Fate & Other Poems 1967-1972 (ed. John Haffenden)
ROBERT LOWELL
1917 Born 1 March, Boston
1935-7 Attended Harvard University
1937--40 Attended Kenyon College, Ohio
1940 Became Roman Catholic
Married Jean Stafford
1940-1 Taught at Kenyon
Graduate study, Louisiana State University
1943 Imprisoned for violation of Selective Service Act
1944 Living Maine, New York
Land of Unlikeness
1946 Lord Weary's Castle
1947 Pulitzer Prize awarded for Lord Weary's Castle
1948 Divorced from Jean Stafford
1949 In hospital; beginning of recurrent mental disturbances
Married to Elizabeth Hardwick
1950-3 Living in Europe
1950 Poems 1938-1949
1951 The Mills of the Kavanaughs
Wins Harriet Monroe Poetry Prize
195~0 Living in Boston, teaches at Boston University
1957 Birth of daughter, Harriet
