Lord Weary s Castle Revisited

Abstract

Lord Weary's Castle conveys Robert Lowell's sense of historical destruction during and immediately after World War ii. Efforts by Lowell to relieve his despair by integrating it with Catholic belief, with Classical themes, with his knowledge of European and American history only succeed in confirming the apocalyptic view. The religious poetry in particular seeks a redemptive state beyond the poet's consciousness of war and violence, but usually results only in confirming the sense of destruction. The nervous, insistent rhythms of the poetry are themselves expressions of Lowell's compulsion to deal with violence and aggressive intrusions on man's consciousness. Finally, no religious or stylistic allegiances, no awareness of history, enable Lowell to transcend the obsession with war. Throughout the book, the poetry expresses pity for the victims of military aggressions. In Lord Weary's Castle, Lowell is disturbed by American military aggression from colonial Indian battles to World War ii; it is a distraught sense of American experience that would continue to haunt his poetry in the following decades. In this insistent consciousness of war, Lowell's poetry touches on our deepest concerns.