“I was a stuffed toucan”: Poetic Self-Positioning in Robert Lowell’s Life Studies

Abstract

This paper addresses identity construction in Robert Lowell’s Life Studies. I argue that references to family, history and other poets indirectly inform the presented self image and call this process poetic self-positioning. In contrast to earlier psychoanalytical and biographical readings, this interpretation is based on the notion of narrative identity. Additionally, I stress the relevance of the concept of ‘emotion’ to identity constructions.