"most was jargon": An (Anti)-Psychoanalytic Reading of Robert Lowell's Life Studies

Robert Lowell was a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet and one of the pioneers of the Confessional movement. He also was a notoriously unstable megalomaniac, who was institutionalized several times throughout his life for his manic-depressive behavior, now known as bipolar disorder. Lowell’s psychological plight, like the suffering of other confessional poets, was made public through his poetry. Life Studies (1959), specifically, encapsulates his neuroses in poems such as “Skunk Hour,” “Home After Three Months Away,” and “Memories of West Street and Lepke.” This work therefore seemed to confirm Sigmund Freud’s theory that great art emerges from deep neuroses. It is no surprise then that Lowell became the subject of much psychoanalytic criticism in the late 20th century. The mania and depression he (publicly) experienced combined with his notoriously troubled relationship with his family encouraged the psychoanalytic critics to excavate Lowell’s writing for “unconscious meaning.” However, psychoanalytic criticism is perhaps not the most effective means through which Lowell’s poetry can be understood. In this thesis, I will contest that the “unconscious material” that many psychoanalytic critics point to in their research is not unconscious at all. I will also reject the theory of narcissistic fixation as it has been applied to Lowell and Life Studies, and will instead assert that our contemporary understanding of Lowell’s bipolar disorder, rather than narcissistic fixation, can deepen our reading of the work. Psychoanalytic theory can deepen our reading of Life Studies, but the payoff is limited when opposed with its methodological bizarreness.