Randall Jarrell: The Great World War Two Poet
By: Diana Woodall
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Randall Jarrell: The Great World War Two Poet By: Diana Woodall
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Randall Jarrell is best known for his World War II poetry in which he depicts the extreme fears and struggles of the soldiers who fought and died. Poet Robert Fitzgerald describes him as "practically the only American poet able to cope with the Second Great War." (The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Page 900). Initially inspired by Professor John Crowe Ransom, Jarrell’s early poems describe the struggles of growing up, political situations, and death. Later in his life, Jarrell takes on the role of deceased soldiers trying to understand life, and writes about "stark subjects in intentionally bitter tones" (American Cultural Leaders. www.bigchalk.com). Jarrell was born in Nashville Tennessee in 1914. In 1915, his family moved to the west coast, and he spent most of his childhood in Long Beach, and Hollywood, California. When Jarrell was only 11 years old, his parents divorced and he was sent to live with his grandparents. In high school, Jarrell took business courses, but he soon came under the influence of John Ransom and realized that he wanted to write poetry instead. Jarrell attended Vanderbilt University and received a bachelor’s and master’s degree. He then went to teach English at Kenyon Collage. In 1939, Jarrell accepted a new teaching position at the University of Texas at Austin, where he met his first wife, Mackie Langham. Jarrell’s early poems began to appear in many newspapers and magazines such as The American Review, The Southern View, and the Kenyon Review. In 1942, Jarrell enlisted in the army air corps, but failed to become a pilot. He instead took a position as a celestial-navigation instructor, where he witnessed the destruction of the war that inspired his many World War II poems. After the war, he continued to write poetry, and taught at the Woman’s Collage at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He received the National Book award for poetry in 1961, the O. Max Gardner Award, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Committee for the Bollingen award, and the American University award for Juvenile Literature. In the last year of Jarrell’s life, he became extremely sick, and he was diagnosed with a manic disorder. Jarrell was hit by a car while walking on dark street in Greensboro, NC, and died on October 14,1965 in an act that may or may not have been suicidal. After his death, poet Robert Lowell said, "His gifts, both by nature and by a lifetime of hard dedication and growth, were wit, pathos, and brilliance of intelligence." (The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Page 899). Published Works Poetry The Rage for the Lost Penny (1940) Prose Poetry and the Age (1953) Anthology Goethe, Faust Part I (1972) Fiction Pictures from an Institution: A Comedy (1954) (http://www.utc.edu/tennesseewriters/r.jarrell.html).
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