Horace Gregory
{{short description|American poet}}
Horace Gregory (April 10, 1898 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – March 11, 1982 in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts) was a prize-winning American poet, translator of classic poetry, literary critic and college professor. He was awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1965.
Life
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin in 1923, he was the author of eight books of poems. He translated poems by the Roman poets Catullus and Ovid, and wrote biographies of Whistler and Amy Lowell.{{cite web |title=Horace Gregory, Poet, Critic, Essayist and Biographer, Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/13/obituaries/horace-gregory-poet-critic-essayist-and-biographer-dies.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=December 29, 2018 |date=March 13, 1982}} In 1925, he married poet and editor Marya Zaturenska (Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, 1938; 1902–1982).[http://user.icx.net/~richmond/fgcgathering/zaturenska.html Marya Zaturenska] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828003309/http://user.icx.net/~richmond/fgcgathering/zaturenska.html |date=2008-08-28 }} They had two children: Patrick Bolten Gregory and Joanna Elizabeth Zeigler née Gregory.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/21/obituaries/marya-zaturenska-lyric-poet-received-pulitzer-prize-in-38.html|title=Marya Zaturenska, Lyric Poet Received Pulitzer Prize in '38|date=1982-01-21|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-12-28|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}
His collected essays, Spirit of Time and Place, were published in 1973. He wrote book reviews that were published in The New York Times.{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/search/query?frow=0&n=10&srcht=s&query=Horace+Gregory&srchst=p&submit.x=18&submit.y=8&submit=sub&hdlquery=&bylquery=Horace+Gregory&daterange=full&mon1=01&day1=01&year1=1981&mon2=06&day2=19&year2=2009|title=Search Results|last=Gregory|first=Horace|work=The New York Times|access-date=2015-11-01}} His work appeared in The New Yorker,[http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?query=horace+gregory&queryType=nonparsed&submitbtn.x=0&submitbtn.y=0&submitbtn=Submit Search : The New Yorker] Contemporary Poetry,{{cite web|url=http://www.cts.dmu.ac.uk/exist/mod_mag/magazine_issue.htm?id%3Dcontemporary_poetry_prose%26issue%3Dcontemporary_poetry_prose_7|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721214158/http://www.cts.dmu.ac.uk/exist/mod_mag/magazine_issue.htm?id=contemporary_poetry_prose&issue=contemporary_poetry_prose_7|archive-date=July 21, 2011|access-date=June 20, 2009| title=Modernist Magazines Project }} The Wisconsin Literary Magazine,[http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Literature/Literature-idx?type=div&did=LITERATURE.V21I01.I0001&isize=text&pview=hide The Literature Collection: The Wisconsin literary magazine (Volume XXI, Number 1): Contents] and Poetry Magazine.{{Cite web |url=http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/g5.html |title=Poetry magazine: Historical Index |access-date=2009-06-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081013013628/http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/g5.html |archive-date=2008-10-13 }}
Gregory's poetry has been described as "literary" and as "exhibit[ing] an awareness of the lives of working people, sometimes taking the form of the elegiac monologue."{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/horace-gregory|title=Horace Gregory|date=2018-12-28|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en|access-date=2018-12-28}} Poet Richard Eberhart said: "The ruthlessness of the city used to be his interest; he used to depict realistic characters and situations within it. Now there is the general serenity, poise and lyrical concern with language." He added: "Gregory is lyrical and straight-forward in these poems." [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/29/obituaries/edgar-johnson-93-biographer-of-dickens-and-scott-is-dead.html Edgar Johnson], biographer of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott among others, said that "Mr. Gregory is not one of those scholar-critics who write only for other scholar-critics. He is a scholar without pedantry, who concentrates not on exhibitionism but illumination."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/13/obituaries/horace-gregory-poet-critic-essayist-and-biographer-dies.html|title=Horace Gregory, Poet, Critic, Essayist and Biographer, Dies|date=1982-03-13|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-12-28|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}
Gregory was a professor of English at Sarah Lawrence College for 26 years, from 1934 to 1960, when he became Professor Emeritus.{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/13/obituaries/horace-gregory-poet-critic-essayist-and-biographer-dies.html| title=HORACE GREGORY, POET, CRITIC, ESSAYIST AND BIOGRAPHER, DIES| date=March 13, 1982| work=The New York Times }} One of his students was future children's poet Myra Cohn Livingston.Rochman, Hazel. "Myra Cohn Livingston." American Writers for Children Since 1960: Poets, Illustrators, and Nonfiction Authors, edited by Glenn E. Estes, Gale, 1987. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 61. Gale Literature Resource Center. Accessed 19 May 2023.
He and Marya Zaturenska attended a 1948 reception at the Gotham Book Mart for Edith Sitwell.{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/08/29/archives/everybody-wants-to-be-a-poet-number-has-doubled.html?sq=Horace+Gregory+Zaturenska&scp=4&st=p| title=Everybody Wants to Be a Poet; Number Has Doubled| author=MICHIKO KAKUTANI| date=August 29, 1979| work=The New York Times}} During the end of his life, Gregory and his wife were residents of Palisades, Rockland County, New York.{{Citation needed|date=October 2015}}
His papers are at Syracuse University.[http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/g/gregory_h.htm Horace Gregory Papers An inventory of his papers at Syracuse University]
Awards
- 1942 Russell Loines Memorial Fund Poetry Award{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1942/05/10/archives/gets-1000-poetry-prize-horace-gregorys-work-lauded-by-henry-seidel.html?sq=Horace%2520Gregory&scp=7&st=cse| title=GETS $1,000 POETRY PRIZE; Horace Gregory's Work Lauded | author=Henry Seidel Canby| date=May 10, 1942 | work=The New York Times}}
- 1961 Academy of American Poets Fellowship{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/11/16/archives/horace-gregory-gets-poetry-prize.html?sq=Horace%2520Gregory&scp=10&st=cse| title=Horace Gregory Gets Poetry Prize| date=November 16, 1961 | work=The New York Times | access-date=May 4, 2010}}
- 1965 Bollingen Prize
Works
=Poetry=
- Chelsea Rooming House (Covici, Friede; 1930)
- No Retreat (Harcourt, Brace & Co.; 1933)
- Chorus for Survival (Covici, Friede; 1935)
- Fortune for Mirabel, 1941
- Poems, 1930-1940 (Harcourt, Brace & Co.; 1941)
- The Triumph of Life: Poems of Consolation for the English-Speaking World, 1943
- The Door in the Desert (1951)
- Medusa in Gramercy Park (Macmillan; 1961)
- Collected Poems (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964)
- Another Look (Holt, Rinehart and Winston; 1976)
=Criticism=
- {{cite book| title=Pilgrim of the Apocalypse: a critical study of D.H. Lawrence| publisher=The Viking Press| year=1933 }}
- {{cite book| title=The Shield of Achilles: essays on beliefs in poetry| url=https://archive.org/details/shieldofachilles0000greg| url-access=registration| publisher=Harcourt, Brace| year=1944 }}
- {{cite book| title=A History of American Poetry, 1900-1940| url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.215305| publisher=Harcourt, Brace and company| year=1947 }}
- {{cite book| title=Amy Lowell: portrait of the poet in her time| url=https://archive.org/details/amylowellportrai00greg| url-access=registration| publisher=T. Nelson| year=1958 }}
- {{cite book| title=The World of James McNeill Whistler| url=https://archive.org/details/worldofjamesmcne006818mbp| publisher=Nelson| year=1959 }}
- {{cite book| title=The Dying Gladiators, and other essays| url=https://archive.org/details/dyinggladiatorsa00greg| url-access=registration| publisher=Grove Press| year=1961}}
=Translations=
- {{cite book| title=The poems of Catullus| url=https://archive.org/details/poemsofcatullus00caturich| url-access=registration|author=Gaius Valerius Catullus | publisher=Covici-Friede| year=1931 }}
- {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KEj8qFPT65sC&q=Horace+Gregory| title=The Metamorphoses|author=Ovid | publisher=Signet Classic| year=1958| isbn=978-0-451-52793-6 }}
- Love Poems of Ovid (1964)
References
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Category:American literary critics
Category:20th-century American poets
Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
Category:Sarah Lawrence College faculty
Category:Writers from Milwaukee
Category:Bollingen Prize recipients