Let us watch Richard Wilbur
Subtitle: a biographical study
By: Robert Bagg and Mary Bagg
Contributors: Bagg, Mary, author
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 376
ISBN-13: 9781625342249; 9781625342232
Subjects: Biography; American Poets
Description: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur (b. 1921) is part of a notable literary cohort, American poets who came to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. Wilbur's verse is esteemed for its fluency, wit, and optimism; his ingeniously rhymed translations of French drama by Molière, Racine, and Corneille remain the most often staged in the English-speaking world; his essays possess a scope and acument equal to the era's best criticism. This biography examines the philosophical and visionary depth of his world-renowned poetry and traces achievements spanning seventy years, from political editorials about World War II to war poems written during his service to his theatrical career, including a collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman on Candide. The authors augment the life story with details gleaned from access to his unpublished journals, family archives, candid interviews they conducted with Wilbur and his wife, Charlee, and his correspondance with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, John Malcolm Brinnin, James Merrill, and others. -- from back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-353) and index.
Table of contents: title: Childhood in North Caldwell, New Jersey; title: Amherst college; title: World War II, stateside and in Italy; title: World War II in France, Germany, and England; title: Religion and Wilbur's war poems; title: The Cambridge years; title: Claiming Molière for his own native tongue; title: Prix de Rome; title: Candide and other Broadway misadventures; title: In the circle with Lowell, Bishop, and Jarrell; title: Keeping a difficult balance; title: Overstressed and overmedicated; title: Key West Winters; title: Life without Charlee.