“run down rose gardens”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, October 1, 1948, Letters, 112.
nine hundred lines altogether: Letter from Robert Lowell to George Santayana, November 14, 1948, Letters, 115.
“flooding up”: Ibid.
“wound to the breaking point”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“I just thought”: Flannery O’Connor to “A,” December 16, 1955, in The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Random House, 1980), 124–25.
“day of the Word made Flesh”: Robert Fitzgerald journal, March 4, 1949, Robert Fitzgerald Papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
“As soon as Cal stepped off the train”: Peter Taylor, “The Art of Fiction No. 99,” Paris Review (Fall 1987).
“Do you smell that?”: Ibid.
“I had an attack of pathological enthusiasm”: Robert Lowell, draft manuscript for Life Studies, Houghton Library.
“a combination of boarding school”: Letter from Robert Lowell to John Thompson, [April ?] 1949, 137.
Baldpate Hospital: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at Baldpate Hospital in Georgetown, Massachusetts, in early April 1949 and discharged July 12, 1949. The clinical observations in the text are from the hospital summary of his stay.
“It went on for months”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“I’m in grand shape”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, April 10, 1949, Letters, 135.
“I’ve been having rather tremendous”: Letter from Robert Lowell to George Santayana, April 10, 1949, Letters, 136.
“I hope some one told you”: Letter from Robert Lowell to William Carlos Williams, April 10, 1949, Letters, 137.
“I’m going through another Yaddo”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Jean Stafford, April 10, 1949, Letters, 136.
“My trouble was that”: Frank Parker, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1980, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
electroconvulsive therapy: For efficacy studies of electroconvulsive therapy, see, for example, S. Mukherjee, H. A. Sackeim, and D. B. Schnur, “Electroconvulsive Therapy of Acute Manic Episodes: A Review of 50 Years’ Experience,” American Journal of Psychiatry 151 (1994): 169–76; UK ECT Review Group, “Efficacy and Safety of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Depressive Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” The Lancet 361 (2003): 799–808; B. Dierckx, W. T. Heijnen, W. W. Van Den Broek, and T. K. Birkenhager, “Efficacy of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Bipolar Versus Unipolar Major Depression: A Meta-Analysis,” Bipolar Disorders 12 (2012): 146–50.
“seemed like a prolonged dream”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Dorothy Pound, August 13, 1949, Collected Letters, 145.
“I’m well and about to leave”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Peter Taylor, July 7, 1949, Letters, 142.
“The hospital is still”: Letter from Robert Lowell to T. S. Eliot, July 25, 1949, Letters, 143.
“I think it is much too soon”: Letter from Robert T. S. Lowell to Robert Lowell, July 13, 1949, Houghton Library.
“All he could remember”: Eileen Simpson, Poets in Their Youth: A Memoir (New York: Macmillan, 1982), 192.
“The curls, the infectious chuckles”: Derek Walcott, “Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007),” The New York Review of Books, January 17, 2008.
“Oh my Petite”: Robert Lowell, “Man and Wife,” Collected Poems, 189.
“He liked women writers”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Darryl Pinckney, “The Art of Fiction No. 87,” Paris Review 96 (Summer 1985).
“I didn’t know what I was getting into”: Elizabeth Hardwick, quoted in an obituary by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in the New York Times, December 4, 2007.
“Certainly Cal had a great influence”: Ibid.
“quite the most thrilling”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Darryl Pinckney, “The Art of Fiction No. 87.”
“Gosh, your visit was wonderful”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick, July 1, 1949, Letters, 141.
“Somehow, quite soon”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“Before receiving electric shocks”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Peter Taylor, August 6, 1949, Letters, 144.
“My ‘experiences’ that led”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Dorothy Pound, August 13, 1949, Letters, 145.
“Nothing I can say”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Gertrude Buckman, August 16, 1949, Letters, 145–46.
Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at the Payne Whitney Clinic from September 13, 1949, until January 3, 1950. His primary psychiatrist there was Dr. John Blitzer. The clinical observations in the text are from Lowell’s hospital records.
“Dearest, dearest”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick, n.d. September 1949, Letters, 147.
“O Lord, how empty I am”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick, September 20–21, 1949, Letters, 148.
“After I’d told all”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick, September 28, 1949, Letters, 148.
“beginning to really learn”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Charlotte Lowell, November 5, 1949, Letters, 149.
In two pages of notes: Notes written by Robert Lowell while hospitalized at Payne Whitney, n.d. (probably September) 1949, Robert Lowell Papers, HRC.
“The mystical experiences”: Letter from Robert Lowell to George Santayana, December 22, 1949, Letters, 151.
“Much against my will”: Robert Lowell, “Beyond the Alps,” Collected Poems, 113.
“I’m out of my dumps”: Letter from Robert Lowell to George Santayana, n.d. August 1950, Letters, 157.
“inert, gloomy, aimless”: Letter from Robert Lowell to George Santayana, December 22, 1949, Letters, 151.
“With what gratitude I look back”: Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights (1979; New York: New York Review Books, 2001), 87.
“It is quiet and still”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, November 6, 1951, Letters, 179.
“got very wound up”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“All the faculty”: Shepherd Brooks, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1980, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“It was extraordinary”: Ibid.
“I pity Cal”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Robie and Anne Macauley, August 24, 1952, HRC.
“terrified of such a thing”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Robie and Anne Macauley, September 1952, HRC.
“ ‘Oh mama, mama’ ”: Robert Lowell, “A Mad Negro Soldier Confined at Munich,” Collected Poems, 118.
“very mild repetition”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Charlotte Lowell, October 19, 1952, Letters, 191–92.
“Cal’s recuperative powers”: Undated later from Elizabeth Hardwick to Ian Hamilton, Hardwick Papers, HRC.
“He was in the early stages”: Blair Clark, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1980, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“I know you worry”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick, February 17, 1954, Letters, 211.
Funeral mania: D. Lagache, “Deuil maniaque,” La Semaine des Hôpitaux de Paris, January 15, 1938; G. A. Rickarby, “Four Cases of Mania Associated with Bereavement,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 165 (1977): 255–62; K. R. Krishnan, “Funeral Mania in Recurrent Bipolar Affective Disorders: Reports of Three Cases,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 45 (1984): 310–11; R. M. Berlin, G. R. Donovan, and R. C. Guerette, “Funeral Mania and Lithium Prophylaxis,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 46 (1985): 111.
“completely deranged”: Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, n.d. March 1954, HRC.
“The blow will always fall”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, April 6, 1954, HRC.
“I can’t say”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick t
o Blair Clark, April 1, 1954, HRC.
“tactless Yankee comments”: Mary Jarrell, ed., Randall Jarrell’s Letters (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), 395.
“So that’s what it was”: Ibid.
“Cal is definitely”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, April 4, 1954, HRC.
“if he asked for a knife”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Peter and Eleanor Taylor, April 11, 1954, Vanderbilt.
“One of the difficulties”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, April 1, 1954, Elizabeth Hardwick Papers, HRC.
“His manic passion”: Jonathan Raban interview with the author, June 20, 2012.
“encouraged by people”: Letter from Robert Giroux to Charles Monteith, July 9, 1970, New York Public Library.
“Literary people”: John Thompson, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“In his manic states”: Letter from George Ford to Ian Hamilton, May 21, 1981, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“a tricky subject for Cal”: Ibid.
“He came back to Cincinnati”: Ibid.
“the strongest and biggest”: Ibid.
“It seems”: Letter from Flannery O’Connor to Sally Fitzgerald, December 26, 1954, in Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being, 74.
“is much more dangerous”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, n.d. April 1954, HRC.
“Cal is badly deranged”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, April 4, 1954, HRC.
“No one has the slightest idea”: Ibid.
Cincinnati hospital: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at the Jewish Hospital from April 8, 1954, until September 15, 1954. His primary physician there was Dr. Philip Piker. He was then transferred to the Payne Whitney Clinic in New York. The clinical observations in the text are from the hospital summary of his history.
“more and more unruly”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, May 1, 1954, HRC.
“I enjoyed him”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, May 4, 1954, HRC.
“His wit, subtlety, variety”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Winslow, May 4, 1954, Houghton Library.
“I know how much he means”: Ibid.
“in which the patient”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, May 1, 1954, HRC.
“You are so afraid”: Ibid.
“I do not see any future”: Ibid.
“I suppose that Mr. Lowell’s wife”: Letter from Philip Piker, M.D., to Merrill Moore, M.D., April 26, 1954, Houghton Library.
“One of the great troubles”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, May 19, 1954, HRC.
“is not a pleasant thing to do”: Ibid.
admitted to the Payne Whitney Clinic: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at the Payne Whitney Clinic in New York from May 21, 1954, until September 15, 1954. His primary physician was Dr. James Masterson. The clinical observations in the text are from Lowell’s hospital records.
“Thank heaven [chlorpromazine] seems”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Winslow, July 4, 1954, Houghton Library.
“I see more and more clearly”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Giovanna Madonia, July 7, 1954, Letters, 237.
“I’ve really been quite sick”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Giovanna Madonia, July 11, 1954, Letters, 238.
John Haslam, apothecary: John Haslam, Observations on Madness and Melancholy (London: J. Callow, 1809), title page. The quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson is from his book The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1759).
“I feel so sorry”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Peter Taylor, April 20, 1954, Vanderbilt.
“They understand that a person”: Ibid.
“Underneath, Cal feels dreadfully”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, June 15, 1954, HRC.
“Cal will recover”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair Clark, August 31, 1954, HRC.
“According to”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Blair Clark, August 6, 1954, Letters, 239.
“I have been sick again”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, November 14, 1954, Letters, 242.
“He just wanted to go back”: Elizabeth Hardwick, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
7. SNOW-SUGARED, UNRAVELING
“We feel the machine slipping from”: Robert Lowell, “Since 1939,” Collected Poems, 741.
“a block down Marlboro”: Robert Lowell, Autobiographical Prose, Houghton Library.
“Here I am in Boston”: Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights, 4.
“His doctor is very”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, November 29, 1954, Robert Lowell Papers, HRC.
“Together we have managed”: Ibid.
“Cal is fine”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Peter Taylor, February 10, 1955, Vanderbilt.
“This has been a funny”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Ezra Pound, April 17, 1955, Letters, 246.
“Cal is feeling very well”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, December 12, 1955, Robert Lowell Papers, HRC.
“It’s soothing to be stopped”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Harriet Winslow, December 27, 1955, Houghton Library.
“Cal is fine”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Winslow, February 18, 1956, Robert Lowell Papers, Houghton Library.
“well and happy”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, February 22, 1956, HRC.
“Already we are exhausted”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, June 18, 1956, Letters, 257.
“It’s terrible discovering”: Letter from Robert Lowell to J. F. Powers, May 16, 1956, Letters, 256.
extended period of normal health: The findings underlying this pattern are extensively reviewed in F. K. Goodwin and K. R. Jamison, Manic-Depressive Illness.
“hardly passionate Marlborough Street”: Robert Lowell, “Memories of West Street and Lepke,” Collected Poems, 187.
“silken claith”: Anonymous, “Sir Patrick Spens,” in The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900, ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1919).
“I see clearly now”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, August 9, 1957, Letters, 282.
“Today I feel certain”: Ibid.
“Dear Cal, do please”: Letter from Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell, August 11, 1957, in Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, ed. Thomas Travisano, with Saskia Hamilton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 217.
“Cal is better than he has been”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Susan Sontag, September 21, 1957, Robert Lowell Papers, HRC.
“nobody seemed to realize”: Dido Merwin, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1980, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“So the police arrived”: William Alfred, interview with Ian Hamilton, 1981, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
Boston State Hospital: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at Boston State Hospital from December 12, 1957, until December 17, 1957. His primary physician was Robert Spitzer, M.D. The clinical observations in the text are from Lowell’s hospital records, including the notes made by Dr. Robert Spitzer and Dr. David Blair.
Massachusetts Mental Health Center: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (formerly the Boston Psychopathic Hospital) from December 17, 1957, until January 14, 1958. His primary physician there was Marian Woolston, M.D. The clinical observations in the text are from Lowell’s medical records.
More than fifty years later: Marian Woolston-Catlin, M.D., interview with the author, August 24 and 28, 2013.
“as active as electricity”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Winslow, February 2, 1958, Houghton Library.
“are always like a Russian novel”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Elizabeth Bishop, January 20, 1958, Vassar.
“begged to come home”: Ibid.
/>
“he would climb right back up”: Ibid.
“I’ve just passed through”: Letter from Robert Lowell to William Carlos Williams, January 22, 1958, Letters, 308.
“keeping up a front”: Robert Lowell to Vernon Williams, M.D., n.d. 1950s, HRC.
“quieting down gradually”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Winslow, January 24, 1958, Houghton Library.
“He has always loved”: Ibid.
“just to sit tight”: Ibid.
McLean Hospital: Robert Lowell was hospitalized at McLean Hospital in Boston from January 30/31, 1958, until May 22, 1958.
“I myself am hell”: Robert Lowell, “Skunk Hour,” Collected Poems, 192.
“within him Hell”: John Milton, Paradise Lost, book 4, line 20.
“Which way I fly”: Ibid., line 75.
“The Christ was killed”: Letter from Robert Lowell to William Empson, January 29, 1958, Letters, 311.
“For the future”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Winslow, February 15, 1958, Houghton Library.
“knowledge, fear and insecurity”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, February 16, 1958, Robert Lowell Papers, HRC.
“There is in these manic things”: Elizabeth Hardwick interview, with Ian Hamilton, 1979, Ian Hamilton Papers, British Library.
“He becomes furious”: Letter from Elizabeth Hardwick to Blair and Holly Clark, February 16, 1958, Robert Lowell Papers, HRC.
“My mania has broken”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Harriet Winslow, March 15, 1958, Letters, 318.
“It’s not much fun writing”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Peter Taylor, March 15, 1958, Letters, 317.
“What can you do after”: Ibid.
“The man next to me”: Letter from Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, March 15, 1958, Letters, 316.
“they tell me nothing’s gone”: Robert Lowell, “Home After Three Months Away,” Collected Poems, 185–86.
“the kind that one wonders”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up with Other Pieces and Stories (1936; London: Penguin, 1965), 45.
“It can never again be”: Ibid., 45.
Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character Page 51