‘From Austen to Zola’
Amy Lowell — a controversial, cigar-smoking, outspoken, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet — collected works by prominent creative artists such as Jane Austen, Ludwig von Beethoven, William Blake, Charlotte Brontë, John Keats, Michelangelo, Walt Whitman, and Émile Zola. Works from Lowell’s collection are showcased in “From Austen to Zola: Amy Lowell as a Collector,” Houghton Library’s fall exhibition. This exhibit opens on Sept. 4 and will run through Jan. 12, 2013. Lowell’s (1874-1925) larger-than-life personality often overshadowed her writing and collecting. Early in her career she became deeply interested in imagism, a new school of poetry led by Ezra Pound. Imagism, in Lowell’s words, aimed to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.” She became its champion, and lectured tirelessly, edited anthologies, and provided discreet support for young writers of promise, notably D.H. Lawrence. In 1925, Lowell won the Pulitzer Prize for her posthumously published collection “What’s O’Clock.” Lowell was one...