Yvor Winters
Encyclopedia
Arthur Yvor Winters was an American poet
and literary critic
.
and Gertrude Stein
, was written in the modernist
idiom, and was heavily influenced both by Native American poetry and by Imagism
. His essay, The Testament of a Stone, gives an account of his poetics during this early period.
Around 1930, he turned away from modernism and developed an Augustan style of writing, notable for its clarity of statement and its formality of rhyme and rhythm.
, and in the same way he created a school of students (of mixed loyalty). His affiliations and proposed canon, however, were quite different: Edith Wharton
's The Age of Innocence
above any one novel by Henry James
, Robert Bridges
above T. S. Eliot
, Charles Churchill above Alexander Pope
, Fulke Greville and George Gascoigne
above Sidney and Spenser
.
He attacked Romanticism
, particularly in American manifestations, and set about Emerson
's reputation as that of a sacred cow
. (Ironically, his first book of poems, Diadems and Fagots, takes its title from one of Emerson's poems.) In this he was probably influenced by Irving Babbitt
. Winters was sometimes and questionably associated with the New Criticism
, largely because John Crowe Ransom
devoted a chapter to him in his book by the same name. He bestowed the sobriquet "the cool master" on the American poet Wallace Stevens. (See the entries for Wallace Stevens
, Harmonium
, and Floral Decorations for Bananas
.)
Winters is known for his argument attacking the "fallacy of imitative form:" "To say that a poet is justified in employing a disintegrating form in order to express a feeling of disintegration, is merely a sophistical justification for bad poetry, akin to the Whitmanian notion that one must write loose and sprawling poetry to "express" the loose and sprawling American continent. In fact, all feeling, if one gives oneself (that is, one's form) up to it, is a way of disintegration; poetic form is by definition a means to arrest the disintegration and order the feeling; and in so far as any poetry tends toward the formless, it fails to be expressive of anything." (Primitivism and Decadence: A Study of American Experimental Poetry, 1937).
. He attended the University of Chicago
where he was a member of a literary circle including Glenway Wescott
, Elizabeth Madox Roberts
, and his future wife Janet Lewis
. He suffered from tuberculosis
in his late teens, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico
. There he recuperated, wrote his early published verse, and taught. In 1925 he became an undergraduate at the University of Colorado
.
In 1926, he married the poet and novelist Janet Lewis
, also from Chicago and a tuberculosis sufferer. After graduating he taught at the University of Idaho
, and then started a doctorate at Stanford University
. He remained at Stanford, living in Los Altos, until two years before his death, from throat cancer
. His students included the poets Thom Gunn
, Donald Hall
, Jim McMichael, N. Scott Momaday
, Robert Pinsky
, John Matthias
, Moore Moran, Roger Dickinson-Brown
and Robert Hass
and the critic Gerald Graff
. He was also a mentor to Donald Justice
, J.V. Cunningham, and Bunichi Kagawa.
He edited Gyroscope, a literary magazine, with his wife, from 1929 to 1931; and Hound & Horn
from 1932 to 1934.
He was awarded the 1961 Bollingen Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and literary critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
.
As modernist
Winters's early poetry, which appeared in small avant-garde magazines alongside work by writers like James JoyceJames Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
, was written in the modernist
Modernist poetry
Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...
idiom, and was heavily influenced both by Native American poetry and by Imagism
Imagism
Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...
. His essay, The Testament of a Stone, gives an account of his poetics during this early period.
Around 1930, he turned away from modernism and developed an Augustan style of writing, notable for its clarity of statement and its formality of rhyme and rhythm.
As critic
Winters's critical style was comparable to that of F. R. LeavisF. R. Leavis
Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis CH was an influential British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for nearly his entire career at Downing College, Cambridge.-Early life:...
, and in the same way he created a school of students (of mixed loyalty). His affiliations and proposed canon, however, were quite different: Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
's The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence is a novel by Edith Wharton published in 1920, which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. The story is set in upper-class New York City in the 1870s. In 1920, The Age of Innocence was serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine, and later released by D...
above any one novel by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, Robert Bridges
Robert Bridges
Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...
above T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Charles Churchill above Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, Fulke Greville and George Gascoigne
George Gascoigne
George Gascoigne was an English poet, soldier, artist, and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to the emergence of Philip Sidney...
above Sidney and Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
.
He attacked Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, particularly in American manifestations, and set about Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
's reputation as that of a sacred cow
Sacred cow
Cattle are considered sacred in various world religions, most notably Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism as well as the religions of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. In some regions, especially India, the slaughter of cattle may be prohibited and their meat may be...
. (Ironically, his first book of poems, Diadems and Fagots, takes its title from one of Emerson's poems.) In this he was probably influenced by Irving Babbitt
Irving Babbitt
Irving Babbitt was an American academic and literary critic, noted for his founding role in a movement that became known as the New Humanism, a significant influence on literary discussion and conservative thought in the period between 1910 to 1930...
. Winters was sometimes and questionably associated with the New Criticism
New Criticism
New Criticism was a movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic...
, largely because John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom was an American poet, essayist, magazine editor, and professor.-Life:...
devoted a chapter to him in his book by the same name. He bestowed the sobriquet "the cool master" on the American poet Wallace Stevens. (See the entries for Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
, Harmonium
Harmonium (poetry collection)
Harmonium is a book of poetry by U.S. poet Wallace Stevens. His first book, it was published in 1923 by Knopf in an edition of 1500 copies. He was in middle age at that time, forty-four years old. The collection comprises 85 poems, ranging in length from just a few lines to several hundred...
, and Floral Decorations for Bananas
Floral Decorations for Bananas
"Floral Decorations for Bananas" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium . It was first published Measure 26 "Floral Decorations for Bananas" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was first published Measure 26 "Floral Decorations for...
.)
Winters is known for his argument attacking the "fallacy of imitative form:" "To say that a poet is justified in employing a disintegrating form in order to express a feeling of disintegration, is merely a sophistical justification for bad poetry, akin to the Whitmanian notion that one must write loose and sprawling poetry to "express" the loose and sprawling American continent. In fact, all feeling, if one gives oneself (that is, one's form) up to it, is a way of disintegration; poetic form is by definition a means to arrest the disintegration and order the feeling; and in so far as any poetry tends toward the formless, it fails to be expressive of anything." (Primitivism and Decadence: A Study of American Experimental Poetry, 1937).
Life
He was born in Chicago, Illinois and brought up in Eagle Rock, CaliforniaEagle Rock, Los Angeles, California
In 1909, Hill Avenue, now Hill Drive, was one of Eagle Rock's most beautiful streets. Other streets were Royal Drive , Acacia Street , Kenilworth Avenue , Highland Avenue , and Fairmont Avenue...
. He attended the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
where he was a member of a literary circle including Glenway Wescott
Glenway Wescott
Glenway Wescott was a major American novelist during the 1920-1940 period and a figure in the American expatriate literary community in Paris during the 1920s. Wescott was gay. His relationship with longtime companion Monroe Wheeler lasted from 1919 until Wescott's death.-Biography:Wescott was...
, Elizabeth Madox Roberts
Elizabeth Madox Roberts
Elizabeth Madox Roberts was a Kentucky novelist and poet, primarily known for her novels and stories about the Kentucky mountain people, including The Time of Man , The Great Meadow and A Buried Treasure . All of her writings are characterized by her distinct, rhythmic prose...
, and his future wife Janet Lewis
Janet Lewis
Janet Loxley Lewis was an American novelist and poet.-Biography:Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was a member of a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters...
. He suffered from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in his late teens, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
. There he recuperated, wrote his early published verse, and taught. In 1925 he became an undergraduate at the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
.
In 1926, he married the poet and novelist Janet Lewis
Janet Lewis
Janet Loxley Lewis was an American novelist and poet.-Biography:Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was a member of a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters...
, also from Chicago and a tuberculosis sufferer. After graduating he taught at the University of Idaho
University of Idaho
The University of Idaho is the State of Idaho's flagship and oldest public university, located in the rural city of Moscow in Latah County in the northern portion of the state...
, and then started a doctorate at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. He remained at Stanford, living in Los Altos, until two years before his death, from throat cancer
Head and neck cancer
Head and neck cancer refers to a group of biologically similar cancers that start in the upper aerodigestive tract, including the lip, oral cavity , nasal cavity , paranasal sinuses, pharynx, and larynx. 90% of head and neck cancers are squamous cell carcinomas , originating from the mucosal lining...
. His students included the poets Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
, Donald Hall
Donald Hall
Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...
, Jim McMichael, N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday
Navarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.-Background:...
, Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
, John Matthias
John Matthias
John Matthias is an American poet. He was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1941 and attended the Ohio State University and Stanford University. At Stanford he studied under the poet and critic Yvor Winters, but did not conform to Winters' stringent anti-modernist position...
, Moore Moran, Roger Dickinson-Brown
Roger Dickinson-Brown
Roger Dickinson-Brown is an American poet, author and teacher, born in 1944, who writes in English and French. After studying under Yvor Winters at Stanford University, he published and broadcast poems, criticism and reviews in the 1970s, and now lives in France.In 1975, the poet Robert Hayden...
and Robert Hass
Robert Hass
Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...
and the critic Gerald Graff
Gerald Graff
Gerald Graff is a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Chicago in 1959 and his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford University in 1963...
. He was also a mentor to Donald Justice
Donald Justice
Donald Justice was an American poet and teacher of writing. In summing up Justice's career, David Orr has written, "In most ways, Justice was no different from any number of solid, quiet older writers devoted to traditional short poems. But he was different in one important sense: sometimes his...
, J.V. Cunningham, and Bunichi Kagawa.
He edited Gyroscope, a literary magazine, with his wife, from 1929 to 1931; and Hound & Horn
Hound & Horn
Hound & Horn, originally subtitled "a Harvard Miscellany", was a literary quarterly founded by Harvard undergrads Lincoln Kirstein and Varian Fry in 1927...
from 1932 to 1934.
He was awarded the 1961 Bollingen Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems.
See also
- Yvor Winters's alternative canon of Elizabethan poetry