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In brief, Robert Lowell’s poetry possesses a prominent position in American literature history. The endings of his works particularly exhibit his ability of conclusiveness and the special techniques of reaching the readers’ satisfaction in various ways, such as easing the tension established within the poem as well as delivering and raising the poem into a higher or more tempting sense. In the following pages, I attempt to examine some representative poems of Robert Lowell, partially using the techniques of studies in poetic closure, and I will try to cast light on how these poems end.
2 Poetic Closure
Stop, finish, completeness, ending, closure. There are differences lying behind these words. Some are obvious, some are ambiguous. Undoubtedly, a stream of thought and emotion, as a process, ends within a shorter process, other than at one simple point. The highest form of such a stream, in art, is poetry. Accordingly, the ending process of poetry is conformed through delicate literary techniques in an artistic way.
The closure of a poem is different from a simple motion of “stop”. A “stop” is when an open faucet is closed after being used; a light is turned off when there’s no one and no sound remains; a long sound of a whistle is heard, signaling the closing moment after a ninety-minute football game. Similarly, the end of a song is a “closure”; and the goes for the ending of a drama, while every audience’s heart is filled with either excitement or desperation, knowing the ending is approaching but cannot resist it; or, when snow in the backyard starting to melt, early birds singing in the tree outside of the window, one must know, mostly with rising expectations and hope inside: this is the closure of a harsh winter. But then there is a further question: what about the end of life? One thing is for sure, that the ending of life is a closure that resembles the ending of a musical piece other than the stop of a bleeding nose.
When reading a poem, the sense of stable conclusiveness we experience at that point and the expectation for gratifying this sense result from what we will discuss here – the finality of a poem what we shall refer as “poetic closure.” According to Barbara Herrenstein Smith, the structure of a poem is essential to make a poetic closure, “whether spatially or temporally perceived, a structure appears ‘closed’ when it is experienced as integral: coherent, complete, and stable.” (1968:2) The tension while reading or performing a poem provided by mainly thematic elements, and the way these elements are organized into a flow of expressions and emotions, namely poetic structure, pave the way for the reader to follow his expectation in regards to the development of the poem, and the approaching ending. Structure is defined as the product of all the principles that decide which line follows the other. In H. Smith’s book Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End, there are mainly two types of structures suggested in terms of their relations with poetic closure: formal structure and thematic structure. These structural principles, due to its possession of the double nature of language, can be perceived in every element of a poem. Formal elements are those exposing the physical nature of words, which also includes features as rhyme, alliteration, and syllabic meter. Thematic elements are the elements which contain symbolic or conventional nature of words, and the comprehension of which counts on the familiarity of the reader to the language. These elements include everything from semantics to syntax to tone. (see Smith 1968:6)
What’s more, those elements, either with formal or thematic features, yet appear not systematically enough to be part of its structure, are referred to as nonstructural elements. All in all, these featured elements, with the contributions from also the natures of poetry, including speech, form, and style, constitute the poetic scene, and pave the way leading to a poetic closure.