Yvor Winters

Arthur Yvor Winters (1900 - January 26, 1968) was an American literary critic and poet, noted as a critic of poetry and embroiled in controversy. His critical style — dogmatic, moralising, dismissive — was comparable to that of F. R. Leavis, and in the same way he created a school of students (of mixed loyalty). His affiliations and proposed canon were though quite different: Henry James set below Edith Wharton in fiction, Robert Bridges set above T. S. Eliot in poetry. He attacked romanticism, particularly in American manifestations, and set about Emerson's reputation as that of a sacred cow. In this he was probably influenced by Irving Babbitt. He was sometimes and questionably associated with the New Criticism.

Related Topics:
1900 - January 26 - 1968 - F. R. Leavis - Henry James - Edith Wharton - Robert Bridges - T. S. Eliot - Romanticism - Emerson - Sacred cow - Irving Babbitt - New Criticism

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He was born in Chicago, Illinois and brought up Eagle Rock, California. 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.

Related Topics:
Chicago, Illinois - Eagle Rock, California - Tuberculosis - Santa Fe, New Mexico - University of Colorado

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In 1926 he married the writer and poet Janet Lewis, also from Chicago and a tuberculosis sufferer. After graduating he taught at the University of Idaho and Kenyon College, and then started a doctorate at Stanford University. He remained at Stanford, where his students included the poets Thom Gunn, Donald Hall, John Matthias, and Robert Hass, until two years before his death, from cancer.

Related Topics:
Janet Lewis - University of Idaho - Kenyon College - Stanford University - Thom Gunn - Donald Hall - John Matthias - Robert Hass - Cancer

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He edited Gyroscope, a literary magazine, with his wife, from 1929 to 1931; and Hound & Horn from 1932 to 1934.

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He was awarded the 1960 Bollingen Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems.

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