No Other Book: Selected Essays
by Randall Jarrell
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"As a critic, Jarrell was chiefly interested in poetry, but his wide and avid circle of readers extended well beyond poets and students of verse. He attracted fans who wanted to hear what he had to say about anything - which was precisely what he offered them: he wrote about music criticism and abstract painting, about the appeal of sports cars and the role of the intellectual in modern American life, about forgotten novels and contemporary trends in education." "Jarrell was only fifty-one show more at the time of his death, in 1965, yet he created a body of work that secured his position as one of the century's leading American men of letters. He saw himself chiefly as a poet, but in addition to a number of books of poetry he left behind a comic novel (Pictures from an Institution), four children's books, numerous translations, haunting letters. And he left four collections of essays, from each of which the present volume draws."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Read a bit of this before returning to library. I think I have to buy this book when we get back from Burma. Jarrell is a smart, witty critic. From Poetry Foundation entry: Robert Lowell wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Jarrell was "almost brutally serious about literature." Lowell conceded that he was famed for his "murderous intuitive phrases," but defended Jarrell by asserting that he took "as much joy in rescuing the reputation of a sleeping good writer as in chloroforming a mediocre one."
Required reading.
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40+ Works 5,035 Members
Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee on May 6, 1914. He earned a bachelor's and master's degrees from Vanderbilt University. His first book of poetry, Blood from a Stranger, was published in 1942. During World War II, he served with the Army Air Force as a control tower operator. His other books of poetry include Little Friend, Little show more Friend; Losses; and The Lost World. He won the National Book Award in 1961 for The Woman at the Washington Zoo. In addition to writing poetry, he reviewed it during a brief period spent as poetry editor for The Nation. Poetry and the Age and A Sad Heart at the Supermarket are collections of his essays as a poetry critic. His teaching career included stints at Kenyon College, the University of Texas, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Illinois, and the University of North Carolina/Greensboro. He also was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that now bears the title Poet Laureate. He was hit by a car in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and died in October 14, 1965 at the age of 51. (Bowker Author Biography) Randall Jarrell (1914-65) was a prolific poet, critic, and translator. His Complete Poems are available from FSG. (Publisher Provided) show less
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- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Nonfiction, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 809 — Literature & rhetoric Literature, rhetoric & criticism History, description, critical appraisal of more than two literatures
- LCC
- PS3519 .A86 .A6 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1900-1960
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- Reviews
- 2
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- (4.06)
- Languages
- English
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- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
