George Garrett (poet)
Encyclopedia
George Palmer Garrett. (June 11, 1929 - May 25, 2008) was an American
poet
and novel
ist. He was the Poet Laureate
of Virginia
from 2002 to 2006. His novels include The Finished Man, Double Vision, and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of Death of the Fox, The Succession, and Entered from the Sun. He worked as a book reviewer and screenwriter, and taught at Cambridge University and, for many years, at the University of Virginia
. He is the subject of critical books by R. H. W. Dillard
, Casey Clabough, and Irving Malin
.
. He graduated from the Sewanee Military Academy in Sewanee Tennessee, in 1945. He earned his BA from Princeton University
in 1952, having matriculated in 1947 and having attended Columbia University
in 1948-49. He also received his MA (1956) and PhD (1985) from Princeton.
Garrett served in the US Army (1946–47), and was stationed in Europe, in Leonding, Austria.
He began his teaching career as an assistant professor at Wesleyan University
, Middletown, Connecticut
(1957–60). After one year as a visiting lecturer at Rice University
, he became associate professor of English at the University of Virginia
, Charlottesville, where he taught for five years before accepting a post as professor of English at Hollins College, Virginia
, in 1967. In 1964-65 he was writer-in-residence at Princeton University. In 1971, he became professor of English and writer-in-residence at the University of South Carolina
, Columbia, where he taught until 1973. From 1974 to 1977 he was senior fellow at the Council of the Humanities, Princeton University. He was then one year at Columbia University as adjunct professor (1977–78), one semester as writer-in-residence at Bennington College
, Vermont
, one semester at the Virginia Military Institute
, and several years at the University of Michigan
, Ann Arbor (1979–84). In 1984 Garrett was appointed Henry Hoyns Professor of English at the University of Virginia, the position in which he continued until his retirement in December 1999.
Garrett's service to the arts was substantial. He served a two-year term as president of the Associated Writing Programs (1971–73). A charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he was the organization's vice-chancellor (1987–93) and chancellor (1993–97). Over the years, he edited several magazines and book series. He was Contemporary Poetry Series editor at the University of North Carolina Press
, Chapel Hill, 1962–68; and Short Story Series editor at the Louisiana State University
Press, 1966-69. From 1958 to 1971 he was United States poetry editor for Transatlantic Review and, from 1965 to 1971 co-editor of Hollins Critic. He was a contributing editor for Contempora and assistant editor of The Film Journal. With Brendan Galvin
he edited Poultry: A Magazine of Voice; and he was fiction editor at The Texas Review.
He is well known for his Elizabethan Trilogy, DEATH OF THE FOX, THE SUCCESSION, and ENTERED FROM THE SUN, a body of work that is so imbued with its subject matter and time as to create the sense that he lived through it all, and had total recall of life in the respective courts of Queen Elizabeth the first, and James the first. DEATH OF THE FOX, the first of the books, raises questions about the nature of the form itself, and in fact all of Mr. Garrett's writing challenges the accepted ideas about the various forms in which he chose to work. The vast panorama of fictional and historical people that occupy the stage in the three novels is equaled by the beautifully drawn contemporary cast of characters in his other novels, THE FINISHED MAN; DO LORD, REMEMBER ME; WHICH ONES ARE THE ENEMY; and THE KING OF BABYLON SHALL NOT COME AGAINST YOU. Garrett never repeated himself, and the variety of his output has perhaps been a bit daunting to the critical establishment of his time, American critics tending to prefer their subjects to be rather one-noted, consistent and readily classified as to type, or theme, or treatment.
Along with this profoundly rich body of work as a writer, George Garrett was utterly unparalleled in his generous treatment of other writers. Dozens of younger writers, both students of his, and others with whom he came in contact, were helped at crucial points in their careers by Garrett, who until the last days of his life was interested in furthering the work of younger colleagues, and of people whose work he had been championing for decades. He was a widely beloved and even revered figure, a man about whom the poet R.H.W. Dillard said, that when he once took someone's hand in friendship, he never let go.
Garrett died at home in Charlottesville, Virginia
, at the age of 78 of cancer. He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006 after having suffered with Myasthenia Gravis for some years.
George Garrett's papers are housed in the Duke University
Special Collections Library.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist. He was the Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
from 2002 to 2006. His novels include The Finished Man, Double Vision, and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of Death of the Fox, The Succession, and Entered from the Sun. He worked as a book reviewer and screenwriter, and taught at Cambridge University and, for many years, at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
. He is the subject of critical books by R. H. W. Dillard
R. H. W. Dillard
Richard Henry Wilde Dillard is an American poet, author, critic, and translator.Born in Roanoke, Virginia, Dillard is best known as a poet. He is also highly-regarded as a writer of fiction and critical essays, as well as one of the screenwriters for the cult classic Frankenstein Meets the Space...
, Casey Clabough, and Irving Malin
Irving Malin
Irving Malin is an American literary critic. Malin attended Thomas Jefferson High School and Jamaica High School and graduated magna cum laude from Queens College in 1955 and received his PhD. from Stanford University in 1958. He taught at the City College of New York from 1960 until his...
.
Biography
George Palmer Garrett was born in Orlando Florida on June 11, 1929. He attended The Hill SchoolThe Hill School
The Hill School is a preparatory boarding school for boys and girls located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia....
. He graduated from the Sewanee Military Academy in Sewanee Tennessee, in 1945. He earned his BA from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in 1952, having matriculated in 1947 and having attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1948-49. He also received his MA (1956) and PhD (1985) from Princeton.
Garrett served in the US Army (1946–47), and was stationed in Europe, in Leonding, Austria.
He began his teaching career as an assistant professor at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
, Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown, Connecticut
Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...
(1957–60). After one year as a visiting lecturer at Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, he became associate professor of English at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
, Charlottesville, where he taught for five years before accepting a post as professor of English at Hollins College, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, in 1967. In 1964-65 he was writer-in-residence at Princeton University. In 1971, he became professor of English and writer-in-residence at the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...
, Columbia, where he taught until 1973. From 1974 to 1977 he was senior fellow at the Council of the Humanities, Princeton University. He was then one year at Columbia University as adjunct professor (1977–78), one semester as writer-in-residence at Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, one semester at the Virginia Military Institute
Virginia Military Institute
The Virginia Military Institute , located in Lexington, Virginia, is the oldest state-supported military college and one of six senior military colleges in the United States. Unlike any other military college in the United States—and in keeping with its founding principles—all VMI students are...
, and several years at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, Ann Arbor (1979–84). In 1984 Garrett was appointed Henry Hoyns Professor of English at the University of Virginia, the position in which he continued until his retirement in December 1999.
Garrett's service to the arts was substantial. He served a two-year term as president of the Associated Writing Programs (1971–73). A charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he was the organization's vice-chancellor (1987–93) and chancellor (1993–97). Over the years, he edited several magazines and book series. He was Contemporary Poetry Series editor at the University of North Carolina Press
University of North Carolina Press
The University of North Carolina Press , founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina....
, Chapel Hill, 1962–68; and Short Story Series editor at the Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
Press, 1966-69. From 1958 to 1971 he was United States poetry editor for Transatlantic Review and, from 1965 to 1971 co-editor of Hollins Critic. He was a contributing editor for Contempora and assistant editor of The Film Journal. With Brendan Galvin
Brendan Galvin
-Life:During forty years of college teaching, he served as Wyndham Robertson Visiting Writer in Residence in the MA program at Hollins University, Coal Royalty Distinguished Writer in Residence in the MFA program at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa and Whichard chair in the Humanities at East...
he edited Poultry: A Magazine of Voice; and he was fiction editor at The Texas Review.
He is well known for his Elizabethan Trilogy, DEATH OF THE FOX, THE SUCCESSION, and ENTERED FROM THE SUN, a body of work that is so imbued with its subject matter and time as to create the sense that he lived through it all, and had total recall of life in the respective courts of Queen Elizabeth the first, and James the first. DEATH OF THE FOX, the first of the books, raises questions about the nature of the form itself, and in fact all of Mr. Garrett's writing challenges the accepted ideas about the various forms in which he chose to work. The vast panorama of fictional and historical people that occupy the stage in the three novels is equaled by the beautifully drawn contemporary cast of characters in his other novels, THE FINISHED MAN; DO LORD, REMEMBER ME; WHICH ONES ARE THE ENEMY; and THE KING OF BABYLON SHALL NOT COME AGAINST YOU. Garrett never repeated himself, and the variety of his output has perhaps been a bit daunting to the critical establishment of his time, American critics tending to prefer their subjects to be rather one-noted, consistent and readily classified as to type, or theme, or treatment.
Along with this profoundly rich body of work as a writer, George Garrett was utterly unparalleled in his generous treatment of other writers. Dozens of younger writers, both students of his, and others with whom he came in contact, were helped at crucial points in their careers by Garrett, who until the last days of his life was interested in furthering the work of younger colleagues, and of people whose work he had been championing for decades. He was a widely beloved and even revered figure, a man about whom the poet R.H.W. Dillard said, that when he once took someone's hand in friendship, he never let go.
Garrett died at home in Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
, at the age of 78 of cancer. He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006 after having suffered with Myasthenia Gravis for some years.
George Garrett's papers are housed in the Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
Special Collections Library.
Awards
- Sewanee Review fellowship (1958)
- American Academy in Rome fellowship (1958)
- Ford grant, for drama (1960)
- National Endowment for the Arts grant (1967)
- Contempora award (1971)
- Guggenheim fellowship (1974)
- American Academy award (1985)
- New York Public Library Literary Lion award (1988)
- T. S. Eliot Award (1989)
- PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction (1990)
- Aiken-Taylor Award (1999)
- Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia (2004)
- Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers (2005)
- Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize (2006)