Robert Lowell, our strange contemporary (1917-1977 - so last-century already) was nicknamed 'Cal' by his friends, a contraction of Caliban. "He was also called Caligula - the least popular Roman emperor with all the disgusting traits, the depravity that everyone assumed Cal had."* Certainly he was flawed, with his lifelong struggle with mental illness - various contemporary attempts at cure (including isolation, electric shock therapy - remember 'The Bell Jar'? - as well as more contradictory types of analysis than an icecream parlour has flavours) rather calling to mind Prometheus having his liver eaten each day than any serious knowledge-based science - but does that make him a hero? And when no poem is finished but it is then redrafted, what sand is that on which to build?
*Frank Parker, interview for BBC TV 1978, quoted in Ian Hamilton's biography