Lowell's life (1917—77), in essence, was a long series of severe mental breakdowns astonishingly combined with the creation of the greatest American poetry since the Second World War. His illustrious New England pedigree led Randall Jarrell to remark: "I'm sure the Lowells have all sorts of Egyptian connections, and were, in the old days, Egyptians." Another friend, Elizabeth Bishop, admired Lowell's poetic use of personal history in Life Studies (1959): "All you have to do is put down the names! The fact that it seems significant, illustrative, American gives you the confidence you display about tackling any idea or theme, seriously, in both writing and conversation. In some ways you are the luckiest poet I know!"

Lowell's immediate forebears were less impressive. His father, an aunt observed, hadn't "a mean bone, an original bone, a funny bone in his body!" Lowell's mother forced her husband to abandon his undistinguished career in the Navy; and in his forties, his soul went underground. Lowell's mother—who had a disturbing affair with his sonneteering psychiatrist, Merrill Moore—later observed of her marriage: "having to live in constant companionship with this comparative stranger, whom I found neither agreeable, interesting, nor admirable, was a terrible nervous strain." Her son felt that her very presence made all the joy go out of existence.