Misery loves company, and no experience is quite so miserable as a divorce, nor any situation as companionable as published confessional literature. Robert Lowell attempted to merge these naturally fitting extremes as best as he could in his collection of works entitled The Dolphin but was met with some pretty swift opposition. Elizabeth Bishop, a close friend and fellow writer of the time, expressed her displeasure of Lowell’s presentations of some aspects of his own love life through the text, specifically where he edited and included his ex-wife Lizzie’s personal letters to him. Bishop’s letter of dissent brings up a fundamental question of art itself: where is the line drawn of what can and cannot be divulged for the sake of art? Another …show more content…
She claims that “art just isn’t worth that much,” but her objections rely heavily on oversimplifications that Avett expands on within his lyrics, words that speak to the other end of the spectrum. Yes, for though Bishop questions the mutual exclusivity of trust and truth, another binary, one of self versus societal rule, comes into question as well. Bishop’s objections are based on assisting the rationalized structures that society already has put in place: how can Lowell betray his wife’s trust like this and still expect the general notion of trust to remain unaffected? Avett does not speak in such generalities. Lowell and Lizzie, Seth and Susan–their stories are their own stories, and the deep emotions that run rampant in those stories consist of more ultimate truth than Bishop’s clinging to the sanctity of the established institution of sivilized humanity. More broadly, “Divorce Separation Blues” serves as further explanation into the reality and Truth of feelings that Bishop questions in Lowell’s explorations of his own failed