George Garrett

American novelist, short-story writer, and poet

• Born: June 11, 1929
• Birthplace: Orlando, Florida
• Died: May 25, 2008
• Place of death: Charlottesville, Virginia

Biography

George Palmer Garrett, Jr., is known principally as a novelist and poet, but he also achieved recognition as playwright, screenwriter, reviewer, and literary critic. He was educated at Sewanee Military Academy and the Hill School. He entered Princeton University in 1947, receiving B.A. and M.A. degrees, and in 1985 he received his Ph.D. degree from Princeton. Garrett has had a distinguished career as teacher and scholar at Wesleyan University, Hollins College, the University of South Carolina, Princeton University, and the University of Virginia.

Garrett is best known for the historical novels Death of the Fox, which tells of the last days of Sir Walter Raleigh; The Succession, which chronicles the lives and times of Elizabeth I and her successor, James I; and Entered from the Sun, in which two bit players on the political scene—one a soldier, the other an actor—attempt to unravel the complicated death of Christopher Marlowe. Garrett’s knowledge of the Elizabethan period is encyclopedic, and his special interest is in the psychology and politics of the Elizabethans. The trilogy delves into the complex machinations of political power and influence in Elizabethan England as these affect both the wealthy and powerful and the common people. The result is a political, social, and psychological profile of one of the most glorious and violent ages of Western civilization.

In his other novels and in his short stories Garrett uses contemporary American life as his subject. His early fiction is realistic and traditional, while his later fiction tends toward the experimental, often relying on surreal characters and episodes, as in his novel Poison Pen. At the center of all his fiction, both early and later, is a gentle war between Garrett’s implacable Episcopalianism and his puckish comic sense. Garrett has also compiled volumes of critical essays that reflect both wide reading and levelheaded judgment, edited collections of stories, and issued collections of his vintage fiction. (The Old Army Game collects his best writing about the military, including his novel Which Ones Are the Enemy?)

Garrett’s poetry falls into two broad categories: personal lyric poems and topical, playful, satiric poems. Many of Garrett’s lyric poems deal with the themes of childhood, growing up, and aging. These poems are invariably terse and insightful, frequently using stories from the Bible as sources. They tell of the pains and joys of the human cycles of birth, growth, and death. Garrett’s satiric poems gain inspiration from the satires and conceits of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans. As these poets saw in their ages, Garrett sees in postwar America a way of life in need of exploration and definition. His satiric poetry often has a sharp edge, but it is neither bitter nor pessimistic.

Although the major concerns of Garrett’s poetry were constant, he experimented with poetic forms and themes. The language of his poetry was increasingly colloquial, and his subject matter ranged from the classical to the topical. The first thing that many readers notice about his poetry is its clever and incisive treatment of contemporary events and people. His poems about actors Ann-Margret and Jack Nicholson and Cosmopolitan magazine are attractive because of their subjects and their playful insights, but balanced against these transitory treatments is a deep and complicated understanding of the human condition.

Bibliography

Betts, Richard. “‘To Dream of Kings’: George Garrett’s The Succession.” The Mississippi Quarterly 45 (Winter, 1991): 53. Argues that Garrett’s Elizabethan fiction has been unjustly overlooked by critics.

Dillard, R. H. W. Understanding George Garrett. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. The first major critical work on Garrett. Contains individual chapters on The Finished Man, Which Ones Are the Enemy?, Do, Lord, Remember Me, the two historical novels, Poison Pen, as well as a chapter on the poems and short stories. Supplemented by a helpful bibliography.

Garrett, George. “Going to See the Elephant: Why We Write Stories.” In Bad Man Blues: A Portable George Garrett. Dallas, Tex.: Southern Methodist University Press, 1998. Talks about growing up in a large family of storytellers; discusses the deeper motivation of storytelling; suggests the duty of storytelling is like that of Pygmies hunting an elephant and then telling the story of the hunt.

George Palmer Garrett: A Bibliography and Index of His Published Works and Criticism of Them. Potsdam, N.Y.: Frederick W. Crumb Memorial Library, 1968. An annotated bibliography of works by and about George Garrett.

Horvath, Brooke, and Irving Malin, eds. George Garrett: The Elizabethan Trilogy. Huntsville, Tex.: Texas Review Press, 1998. A critical study of a number of historical figures as they relate to Garrett’s work, including Sir Walter Raleigh and Christopher Marlowe. Includes a bibliography and index.

Meriwether, James B. “George Palmer Garrett, Jr.” Princeton University Library Chronicle 25, no. 1 (1963): 26-39. An introductory article on Garrett’s work, acknowledging his excellence in poetry at the time when he was turning his attention more to fiction. Southern and family themes are noted. Complemented by a checklist of Garrett’s writings.

Mewshaw, Michael. “George Garrett and the Sweet Science of Fiction.” Sewanee Review 110 (Summer, 2002): 267-273. A writer’s recollections of Garrett as a teacher and mentor.

Mill Mountain Review 1, no. 4 (Summer, 1971). This special issue on Garrett includes critical essays and personal comments by Fred Chappell, Gordon Lish, and others.

Robinson, W. R. “Imagining the Individual: George Garrett’s Death of the Fox.” Hollins Critic 8 (1971): 1-12. An exploration of the mixture of fact and creation that is inherent in fiction and the historical novel in particular, with extensive quotations from Garrett on the subject. Robinson argues that Garrett’s work is a serious creation and surpasses conventional historical fiction.

Rozett, Martha Tuck. “Constructing a World: How Postmodern Historical Fiction Reimagines the Past.” Clio 25 (Winter, 1996): 145. Discusses Garrett’s Elizabethan novels.

Sheets, Anna J., ed. Short Story Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers. Vol. 30. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1999. Includes excerpts from Garrett, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Gina Berriault, Theodore Dreiser, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Emilia Pardo Bazán, and Leo Tolstoy.

Slavitt, David R. “History—Fate and Freedom: A Look at George Garrett’s New Novel.” The Southern Review 7 (1971): 276-294. In this lengthy first review of Death of the Fox, Slavitt examines the novel in relation to Garrett’s earlier works and considers the creative process.

Spears, Monroe K. “George Garrett and the Historical Novel.” The Virginia Quarterly Review 61, no. 2 (Spring, 1985): 262-276. Spears considers how closely The Succession and Death of the Fox correspond to the traditional definition of the historical novel.

Wier, Allen. “Skin and Bones: George Garrett’s Living Spirits.” In Bad Man Blues: A Portable George Garrett. Dallas, Tex.: Southern Methodist University Press, 1998. Discusses Garrett’s interest in the relationship between fact and fiction and the relationship between the present and the past. Comments on Garrett’s experimentation with ways of telling stories.