Amy Lowell Is Gi Ven in Re Spon Se to a Desire on the Part of ' Many Readers “ to Know Something More About the Poet and Critic Whose Genius Has Been Such a St Im U
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%3525 " “3 2 fife f 7 1611 1 AMY LO W ELL M HU A Ske tch of H er Life an d H er !lace in Con temporary Am erican Litera ture B Y RICHAR! HU NT HIS biographical resum e of Miss Amy Lowell is gi ven in re spon se to a desire on the part of ' many readers “ to know something more about the poet and critic whose genius has been such a st im u lating element in the modern poetry renaissance . Lowell family seems to have had more than ‘The a normal quota of literary gentlemen . The first col on is t , Percival Lowell , a merchant of Bristol , Somer 16 3 7 set , England , who arrived in Newburyport in , wrote an ode on the death of Governor Winthrop ’ which contains the following nai ve quatrain ! ’ He re ou h av e Lowe ll s lo al y y ty, !e n n e h sle n er skill d wit d , An d w h n o oo oe r it it g d p t y, ” B ut l ll ce rta in y good wi . ’ - Mis Lowell s great grandfather , John Lowell , a sce n dan t of di this gentleman , gained consider g able local fame by his newspaper articles signed The “ ll Boston Rebe and The Norfolk Farmer . The best-known literary man in the family was James l of Russel Lowell , the poet , who was a cousin Miss 9 ( 5 0 75 8 2 L 0 e ! ' ’ ’ Lowe lf a at he ! ss s r n , g df r Mi Lowell s brother , Presi ’ . H fi dent A Lawrence Lowell of arvard U niversity , a s many people know , possesses the literary gift , as did her other brother , the late Professor Percival Lowell . ’ i t fl , in the long run , Miss Lowell s ancestors of the direct line have been distinguished chiefly for a ge n eral good standing in business and the professions , and for an abundant energy which has led them into i or o . He r altruistic , scholarly artist c avocati ns great ” grandfather, the Boston Rebel already referred n ot con to , was a lawyer , but he found time only to tribute to the papers but also to engage in hort icul as . tural pursuits . His greenhouse in Roxbury , M s an fl contained the first orchids grown in America , Miss Lowell 1s still ln possession of a number of large azalea bushes which were brought to this country and presented to him by the famous French landscape ’ gardener Michaux . Miss Lowell s grandfather , John Amory Lowell , a pioneer in the New England cotton industry and first Trustee of t he now famous Lowell Institute , was also a horticulturist by avocation , and “ ” the Roxbury place , Broomley Vale , which he in it his h e r e d from father , was renowned for its gardens l f and glass houses . n the Brookline place where Miss Lowell now lives , her father , Augustus Lowell , car ried on the horticultural traditions of the family . Though he too was a business man , he found time personally to plan the extensive gardening about t h place and to do much of the superintending him self . At least two qualities appear in Miss Lowell ’ s t he poetry which are markedly atavistic ! namely , AMY LOWELL 3 vi or of mind which f ‘ kee n interests in life an of garden flowers . M e n many kinds of nature poets , but none exactly like Miss Lowell . She is the poet of that nature which is the product of landscape gardening !e o a e e and architecture . As g through her p g s find ourselves in old secluded gardens where fountains s ( play into cool ba ins , paths wind an d flowering shrubbery , marble steps lead - garden seats . Her poems are sweet scented with narcissus ! allthe da ffodils n Are blowi g a n d t he bright blue sq uills . h rt ic lt ur And no wonder , with three generations of o u ist s behind her ! She has lived her whole life in the of atmosphere ancestral garden flowers , and the visi tor at her house to-day will notice the greenhouses and will be delighted by the many vases of flowers which cover her tables and fill the rooms with t heir fragrance . ’ /f Miss Lowell s mother , was Miss Katharine dau ht Bigelow Lawrence , g Abbott Lawrence , at C on of . one time Minister to the St James , was an accomplished musician and uist , speaking five languages , singing , and playing three instruments . w Miss Lowell was supposed to ge t her early education “ o Wa s in the private scho ls , but her real teacher her w ‘ l’ mother , and to her e m a y trace Miss Lowe l s thor r ough g ounding in the French language , and , devel 4 AMY LOWELL e oping from this , her deep int rest in French literature and history . I! s F Miss Lowell was born in Brookline , Mas , e bru ' -i 9 1874 . x ary , It was thirty s years before her first - poem appeared in print , and thirty eight years before her first volume was published , yet her career as a poet may be said to have started in childhood when m she Ishe began storing up i pressions , to which 1 showed an early and extreme sensitiveness . \ The m portance of the years previous t o her recognition is evident . !The first of the two periods into which these years were naturally divided extended from early child 1902 un on hood to the year , and was the period of c ' f scious assimilation and of finding hersel . She wrote a verses when she was thirteen , and t an early age had - r vague aspirations toward story writing . Her litera y impulses , however , indicated nothing precocious , as they were still indeterminate means occu pied first place in her though found an outlet for the most part in healthy pastimes o as tennis and horseback riding , in her devoti n to the ’ f n d animals on her ather s place , a in reading many 11 books ln the large family library . When she was eight years old she was taken to Europe and was whirled in true American style Hol through Scotland , England , France , Belgium , land , Italy , Germany , Norway , Denmark and Sweden . Her mind was greatly stimulated by the im r ssion s s om e of . n e wan d swiftly changing p e tt which , o enhanced by such i magi nary fears as all children AMY LOWELL 5 for un le as know , recurred months afterward with p - v ant vividness When she was twenty on e her mother died , and the ext year she went abroad again . The 9 - on win t e r of 18 7 9 8 she passed the Nile , and the on following winte r a fruit ranch in El Cajon , Cali of of e forn ia . This is typical the variety exp rience which it has been her good for tune t o have had since childhood . In fact New has been tempered by he sum 05 h f _ 1 89 9 19 s e mers o and again pa Europe , and during the winter and Spring of 1908 she went t o of Greece and Turkey . After the death her father in 1900 , she purchased the family place in Brookline , an d for a while devoted herself to educational and x ' library work in the interests of the town / But about this time s he began quite strongly to feel the poetic of being a poet . ' year, then , marks he e trance upon the second period of her artistic car r . She ha d fully decided that poetry was her natural mode of expres sion , and for eight long years we find her serving a solitary and faithful apprenticeship . reading the masters , learning the technique of poetry , and de v elopin g he r genius by constant exerci se . It was a o s he disc uraging struggle , for was her only critic , but to this fact is undoubtedly due much of her individu ality and excellence . Spending her time mostly be tween Brookline and her summer . H . she N , wrote many poems , but poned all publication till she should be quite sure of 6 AMY LOWELL He r herself . first published poem appeared in the ” f 9 or 1 10 . Atlantic Monthly, August , Two years of later her first volume poetry came out . “ - ” A Dome of Many Coloured Glass was a typical first book iin that it icon t ain e d various poems of the sort which every poet must write before fully re aliz ing his own individuality. But it is this very fact which gives the volume much of it s human quality . ’ In Miss Lowell s later books this quality is more veiled by the method , but the moment we recognize the ourselves penetrating to the human Many of the poems in her first book foreshadowed he gv ividn e s s of image pre se n t at ion t firm n e ss of t on e , he h , and the imaginative , m power, which ake her later volumes so peculiarly her own It 1s worth remarking that the volume Opens with a f o . sort free verse poem Yet , when this poem was vers li bre written , had not broken into the magazines “ and Ima is was a word not heard of .