[Waking in the Blue: The representation and the role of the psychiatric disorder in Robert Lowell's confessional poetry].

Abstract

Background: Psychobiographical analyses of the significant representatives of confessional poetry are important in understanding both the genesis of the poems and the history of the authors' psychiatric disorders. Most of the American confessional poets have died by suicide but Robert Lowell avoided this sad faith.

Aims: The purpose of this present paper is to analyze how the psychiatric disorder has been captured in his confessio - nal poetry and what sorts of creative processes can be identified that have possibly contributed to the fact that Lowell avoided suicide.

Methods: Art-, biographical- and document analyses have been performed. The analyzed writings belong to the confessional-lyrical part of Lowell's oeuvre. The reconstruction of the biography- and the illness history have been conducted based on international publications.

Results: Robert Lowell was hospitalized for the first time due to a psychiatric disorder in 1949, at the age of 32. The diagnosis was bipolar disorder and he suffered from this disorder through the rest of his life. During his psychiatric treatments obvious relationships have been revealed between his hypomanic states and artistic creativity. Moreover, he felt that his illness had been playing an important part in his art and contributed to his identity. The onset of the episodes of his bipolar disorder and the processes of his artistic self-expression were intertwined. Accordingly, hypo - manic states served as sources for creativity and the illness itself became an important theme in his poetry.

Conclusions: Robert Lowell's artistic viewpoint, his desire for freedom and the sensitive way he was able to show Ame - rica in the mid-twentieth century all might have been in relationship with his psychiatric illness. His unique per - spective and artistic and political sensitivity made him one of the most admired poets of his era and maybe the same sensitivity contributed to his unexpected death at the age of 60. Professional psychiatric treatments, creative generative processes and the received support from family members and friends were those factors that might have been helped him in avoiding suicide.