Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur was an influential American poet, translator, and educator, born in New York City in 1921. He spent significant time in rural New Jersey, which inspired much of his early nature poetry. Wilbur began writing at a young age, publishing his first poem at just eight years old. His experiences during World War II, where he served from 1943 to 1945, deepened his commitment to poetry as a serious craft. He earned an MA in English from Harvard University and published his first two collections, "The Beautiful Changes" and "Ceremony," shortly after. Throughout his career, Wilbur received numerous accolades, including two Pulitzer Prizes, and served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1987 to 1988. He is also known for his translations of French classical plays, particularly those of Molière. Wilbur's work spans both adult and juvenile poetry, and he continued to publish until his later years, showcasing a formalist style that resonates with readers.
Richard Wilbur
American poet and translator
- Born: March 1, 1921
- Birthplace: New York, New York
Biography
Richard Purdy Wilbur, the son of Lawrence Lazear Wilbur, an artist, and Helen Ruth Purdy Wilbur, was born in New York City but spent many early years in a rural area near North Caldwell, New Jersey. He has asserted that this country experience accounts for his earlier nature poetry. He wrote his first poem, “That’s When the Nightingales Wake,” at the age of eight. After graduating from Montclair High School, he attended Amherst College in Massachusetts where he edited the college newspaper and considered a career in journalism. He graduated in 1942 and that same year married college sweetheart Charlotte Ward, with whom he had four children, Ellen, Christopher, Nathan, and Aaron. They were married for sixty-four years until her death in 2007.
He wrote poetry from a young age, but it was the experience of the war that turned him toward writing as a serious endeavor. During World War II from 1943 to 1945 he served as an enlisted man in Europe at some of the major fronts. After the war he returned to school, and in 1947 he received an MA in English from Harvard University where he remained as a junior fellow until 1950. In 1947 and 1950 his first two books of poems, The Beautiful Changes and Ceremony, appeared. In 1950, committed to an academic career, he became an assistant professor of English at Harvard, an unusual post for one without a doctorate. He took time out in 1952 to visit Mexico on a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. During this time he won the Harriet Monroe and the Oscar Blumenthal prizes from Poetry magazine, and in 1954 he won the three-thousand-dollar Prix de Rome from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His scholarly work was centered on Edgar Allan Poe, whose complete poems he edited.
In 1955 Wilbur was made an associate professor of English at Wellesley College, where he taught for two years. In that same year his translation of Molière’s The Misanthrope was published and produced in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Poet’s Theatre; the following year it was staged at the Theatre East Off-Broadway. A Bestiary (an anthology) was published at this time; later came The Pelican from a Bestiary of 1120, a privately printed 1963 translation of a poem by Philippe de Thuan.
In 1957 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Things of This World. The same year he was appointed professor of English at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He won the Boston Festival Award in 1959, and in 1960 he received a Ford Fellowship and was awarded an honorary LHD degree by Sarah Lawrence College. He became vice president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1959. In September, 1961, the year of his fourth book of poems, Advice to a Prophet, he traveled to Russia as an American literary specialist for the State Department. In 1977 he left Wesleyan to become writer-in-residence at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, a position he held until 1986.
During this time a paperback release, The Poems of Richard Wilbur, came out, as did Walking to Sleep, The Mind-Reader: New Poems, and New Poems. In 1989 a collection of poems from all his books was published under the title New and Collected Poems, which won him a second Pulitzer Prize in poetry as well as many other awards and nominations. From 1987 to 1988 he was the Poet Laureate of the United States.
Most of Wilbur’s publications in the 1990s following his laureateship were of juvenile poetry. However, in 2000 he published Mayflies, a collection of his adult work composed throughout the previous decade. In addition to new poems that show his continuing formalist style, the book includes translations of poems by Dante and Molière. In 2010 he published Anterooms: New Poems and Translations, which included a tribute to his late wife, "The House."
Wilbur also continued producing fine translations of classical French drama. He translated Molière’s Tartuffe in 1963, for which he was the co-recipient of the Bollingen Prize, and The School for Wives in 1971, The Learned Ladies in 1978, and School for Husbands in 1992. He also translated two plays by Racine and wrote or rewrote most of the lyrics for Candide by Leonard Bernstein. His rhyming translations of Molière's The Misanthrope and Tartuffe have been adapted for the stage and were still performed at numerous university and Off-Broadway stages in 2016.
Author Works
Poetry:
The Beautiful Changes, and Other Poems, 1947
Ceremony, and Other Poems, 1950
Things of This World, 1956
Poems, 1943–1956, 1957
Advice to a Prophet, and Other Poems, 1961
Loudmouse, 1963 (juvenile)
The Poems of Richard Wilbur, 1963
Walking to Sleep: New Poems and Translations, 1969
Digging for China, 1970
Opposites, 1973 (juvenile)
The Mind-Reader: New Poems, 1976
Seven Poems, 1981
New and Collected Poems, 1988
More Opposites, 1991 (juvenile)
Runaway Opposites, 1995 (juvenile)
The Disappearing Alphabet, 1998 (juvenile)
Mayflies: New Poems, 2000
Collected Poems, 1943–2004, 2004
Drama:
Candide: A Comic Operetta, pr. 1956 (lyrics book by Lillian Hellman, music by Leonard Bernstein)
Translations:
The Misanthrope, 1955 (Molière)
Tartuffe, 1963 (Molière)
The School for Wives, 1971 (Molière)
The Learned Ladies, 1978 (Molière)
Andromache, 1982 (Jean Racine)
Four Comedies, 1982 (Molière)
Phaedra, 1986 (Racine)
The School for Husbands, 1991 (Molière)
The Imaginary Cuckold: Or, Sgarnarelle, 1993 (Molière)
Amphitryon, 1995 (Molière)
The Bungler, 2000 (Molière)
Don Juan, 2001 (Molière)
The Suitors, 2001 (Racine)
The Theatre of Illusion, 2007 (Pierre Corneille)
Le Cid, 2009 (Corneille)
The Liar, 2009 (Corneille)
Lovers' Quarrels, 2009 (Molière)
Nonfiction:
Responses, Prose Pieces: 1953–1976, 1976, expanded 2000
On My Own Work, 1983
Conversations with Richard Wilbur, 1990 (William Butts, editor)
The Catbird’s Song: Prose Pieces, 1963–1995, 1997
Edited Texts:
A Bestiary, 1955
Modern America and Modern British Poetry, 1955 (with Louis Untermeyer and Karl Shapiro)
Poe: Complete Poems, 1959
Shakespeare: Poems, 1966 (with Alfred Harbage)
The Narrative Poems and Poems of Doubtful Authenticity, 1974
Bibliography
Bagg, Robert. "Richard Wilbur in World War II: Part One: The Road to 'Tywater.'" Hopkins Review 6.3 (Summer 2013): 189–323. Print. The first of two articles discussing Wilbur's experiences in Europe during World War II, including the poem he wrote in memory of a young corporal killed by German machine gun fire.
Bagg, Robert. "Richard Wilbur in World War II: Part Two: Jeeps Full of Kisses, Eyes Full of Sorrow." Hopkins Review 6.4 (Fall 2013): 439–73. Print. The second of two articles discussing Wilbur's experiences in Europe during World War II; covers the period from 1944 and the Allied invasion of the south of France through Wilbur's return to the United States at the end of the war.
Bixler, Frances. Richard Wilbur: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991. Print. A useful bibliographical guide to Wilbur’s work and its criticism.
Cummins, Paul F. Richard Wilbur: A Critical Essay. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971. Print. Defends Wilbur’s poetry against the charge of passionless elegance; argues that the poet uses rhyme and meter skillfully to enhance tone and meaning.
Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. A Reader’s Guide to the Poetry of Richard Wilbur. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1995. Print.Pprovides some worthwhile insights into Wilbur’s poems up to those included in New and Collected Poems (1988).
Field, John P. Richard Wilbur: A Bibliographical Checklist. Serif series: Bibliographies and Checklists 16. Kent: Kent State UP, 1971. Print. Provides a valuable detailed listing of Wilbur's poetry collections and their contents, articles, stories, edited works, book reviews, interviews, and manuscripts, as well as a list of secondary sources.
Hougen, John B. Ecstasy within Discipline: The Poetry of Richard Wilbur. Atlanta: Scholar’s, 1995. Print. Provides some useful insights into the formal aspects of Wilbur’s writing, with particular attention to theological themes.
Michelson, Bruce. Wilbur’s Poetry: Music in a Scattering Time. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1991. Print. The first comprehensive study of Wilbur’s poetry since that late 1960s, attempting to counter the widespread opinion that Wilbur is a bland poet.
Salinger, Wendy, ed. Richard Wilbur’s Creation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1983. Print. A collection featuring, in part 1, many previously published reviews of Wilbur’s chief works through 1976, from contributors including Louise Bogan, Randall Jarrell, Donald Hall, and John Ciardi; part 2 presents more comprehensive critical essays on various aspects of the poet’s themes and craft.
Weinman, Jaime. "The Last of the Rhyming Poets." Maclean's. Rogers Media, 30 May 2011. Web. 6 Apr. 2016. Discusses Wilbur's translation of Molière’s The Misanthrope, notable for being crafted in rhyming couplets like the French original.
Woodward, Richard. "A Great Living Poet's Rare Art of Reticence." Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones, 1 Mar. 2011. Web. 6 Apr. 2016. Celebrates Wilbur's ninetieth birthday with a profile and discussion of why he never enjoyed the popularity he deserves.