Lowell's attempts at new poetic forms and techniques in Life Studies provided a breakthrough for American poetry, which had become stagnant in the 1950s. Going beyond the formalism of his early poems, and choosing subjects that had never been tried before in poetry, Lowell made a desperate effort to enliven the stagnant American poetry. At the same time Life Studies made a turning point for Lowell as a poet for he found his own voice and his own poetic world in this work of poems. What he did for Life Studies is defined as an act of ‘living’ and ‘becoming’ in this article. But ironically, individual poems of Life Studies deal with lives which are actually various forms of death: sterile relations, the failure to face changes of time, selfcenteredness, and individuals' mental disharmony. By presenting variations of death suffered by those around him, Lowell asserts the desperate need to live an active life and not to be trapped by death. To live is to be willing to give up self-centeredness, to break up the firm and safe boundaries of one's own identity, to give up the safety and privilege of the familiar modes of existence, and not to be afraid of any changes that the flow of time is supposed to bring about. In “Skunk Hour,” Lowell presents an alternative mode of life to the deathlike life exploited in Life Studies . Mother skunk is a figure who is undeterred by anything to feed her kittens. By combining contrasting features in herself, she becomes a symbol of creative imagination, healing power, and above all, all-embracing love breaking up the boundary of self. By rendering mother skunk as an embodiment of his idea of life and love, Lowell rounds out Life Studies as a work on life and love. Later in his poetic career, Lowell, as was in Life Studies , continues to commit changes by going beyond the established boundaries of poetry. In this sense, Lowell can be called a poet of 'becoming.'

Lowell's attempts at new poetic forms and techniques in Life Studies provided a breakthrough for American poetry, which had become stagnant in the 1950s. Going beyond the formalism of his early poems, and choosing subjects that had never been tried before in poetry, Lowell made a desperate effort to enliven the stagnant American poetry. At the same time Life Studies made a turning point for Lowell as a poet for he found his own voice and his own poetic world in this work of poems. What he did for Life Studies is defined as an act of ‘living’ and ‘becoming’ in this article. But ironically, individual poems of Life Studies deal with lives which are actually various forms of death: sterile relations, the failure to face changes of time, selfcenteredness, and individuals' mental disharmony. By presenting variations of death suffered by those around him, Lowell asserts the desperate need to live an active life and not to be trapped by death. To live is to be willing to give up self-centeredness, to break up the firm and safe boundaries of one's own identity, to give up the safety and privilege of the familiar modes of existence, and not to be afraid of any changes that the flow of time is supposed to bring about. In “Skunk Hour,” Lowell presents an alternative mode of life to the deathlike life exploited in Life Studies . Mother skunk is a figure who is undeterred by anything to feed her kittens. By combining contrasting features in herself, she becomes a symbol of creative imagination, healing power, and above all, all-embracing love breaking up the boundary of self. By rendering mother skunk as an embodiment of his idea of life and love, Lowell rounds out Life Studies as a work on life and love. Later in his poetic career, Lowell, as was in Life Studies , continues to commit changes by going beyond the established boundaries of poetry. In this sense, Lowell can be called a poet of 'becoming.'

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Life Studies, boundary, becoming, love, living, change, death