Richard Howard
Encyclopedia
Richard Howard is an American
poet
, literary critic, essay
ist, teacher
, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio
and is a graduate of Columbia University
, where he studied under Mark Van Doren
, and where he now teaches. He lives in New York City
.
in 1952-53, Howard had a brief early career as a lexicographer. He soon turned his attention to poetry and poetic criticism, and won the Pulitzer Prize
for poetry for his 1969 collection Untitled Subjects, which took for its subject dramatic imagined letters and monologues of 19th century historical
figures. For much of his career, Howard has written poems using a quantitative verse technique.
He was awarded the PEN Translation Prize in 1976 for his translation of E. M. Cioran's A Short History of Decay and the American Book Award
for his 1983 translation of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal
. Howard was a long-time poetry editor of The Paris Review and is currently poetry editor of The Western Humanities Review. He has also received a Pulitzer prize
, the Academy of Arts and Letters Literary Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets
, he is Professor of Practice in the writing program at Columbia's School of the Arts
. He was previously University Professor of English
at the University of Houston
and, before that, Ropes Professor of Comparative Literature
at the University of Cincinnati
. He served as Poet Laureate
of the State of New York from 1994 to 1997.
In 1982, Howard was named a Chevalier
of L'Ordre National du Mérite by the government of France.
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...
, literary critic, essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
ist, teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
and is a graduate of 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...
, where he studied under Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
, and where he now teaches. He lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Life
After reading French letters at the SorbonneSorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in 1952-53, Howard had a brief early career as a lexicographer. He soon turned his attention to poetry and poetic criticism, and won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for poetry for his 1969 collection Untitled Subjects, which took for its subject dramatic imagined letters and monologues of 19th century historical
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
figures. For much of his career, Howard has written poems using a quantitative verse technique.
He was awarded the PEN Translation Prize in 1976 for his translation of E. M. Cioran's A Short History of Decay and the American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
for his 1983 translation of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal
Les Fleurs du mal
Les Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 , it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements...
. Howard was a long-time poetry editor of The Paris Review and is currently poetry editor of The Western Humanities Review. He has also received a Pulitzer prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, the Academy of Arts and Letters Literary Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...
, he is Professor of Practice in the writing program at Columbia's School of the Arts
Columbia University School of the Arts
The Columbia University School of the Arts , also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the division of the university that offers Master of Fine Arts degrees in Film, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, and Writing, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies...
. He was previously University Professor of English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
at the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
and, before that, Ropes Professor of Comparative Literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
at the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
. He served as 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 the State of New York from 1994 to 1997.
In 1982, Howard was named a Chevalier
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
of L'Ordre National du Mérite by the government of France.
Poetry
- Quantities (1962)
- Damages (1967)
- Untitled Subjects (1969)
- Findings 1971
- Two-Part Inventions (1974)
- Fellow Feelings (1976)
- Misgivings (1979)
- Lining Up (1984)
- No Traveller (1989)
- Selected Poems (1991)
- Like Most Revelations (1994)
- Trappings (1999)
- Talking Cures (2002)
- Fallacies of Wonder (2003)
- Inner Voices (selected poems), 2004
- The Silent Treatment (2005)
- Without Saying (2008)
Critical Essays
- Alone With America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States Since 1950 (1969)
- Preferences: 51 American Poets Choose Poems From Their Own Work and From the Past (1974)
- Travel Writing of Henry James (essay) (1994)
- Paper Trail: Selected Prose 1965-2003 (2004)
Major Translations (French to English)
- Les Fleurs du malLes Fleurs du malLes Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 , it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements...
by Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century... - La Guerre en Algérie by Jules RoyJules RoyJules Roy was a French writer. "Prolific and polemical" Roy, born an Algerian pied noir and sent to a Roman Catholic seminary, used his experiences as the French colony and during his service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War to inspire a number of his words...
- Camera LucidaCamera LucidaCamera Lucida is a short book published in 1980 by the French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes. It is simultaneously an inquiry into the nature and essence of photography and a eulogy to Barthes' late mother...
, and many other works by Roland BarthesRoland BarthesRoland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and... - Simone de BeauvoirSimone de BeauvoirSimone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
- NadjaNadjaNadja may refer to:* Nadja , 1928 surrealist novel by André Breton* Nadja , 1994 vampire film by Michael Almereyda* Nadja , Canadian drone doom metal side project of Aidan Baker* Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violinist...
by André BretonAndré BretonAndré Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism".... - Emil CioranEmil Cioran-Early life:Emil M. Cioran was born in Răşinari, Sibiu County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was a Romanian Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira Cioran , was originally from Veneţia de Jos, a commune near Făgăraş.After studying humanities at the...
- Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
- Charles de GaulleCharles de GaulleCharles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
- André GideAndré GideAndré Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
- Jean GiraudouxJean GiraudouxHippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...
- Serres chaudesSerres chaudesHothouses is a book of symbolist poetry by Belgian Nobel Laureate Maurice Maeterlinck. Most of the poems in this collection are written in octosyllabic verse, but some are in free verse.-Poems:#"Serre chaude"...
by Maurice MaeterlinckMaurice MaeterlinckMaurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life... - Alain Robbe-GrilletAlain Robbe-GrilletAlain Robbe-Grillet , was a French writer and filmmaker. He was, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice...
- Claude SimonClaude SimonClaude Simon was a French novelist and the 1985 Nobel Laureate in Literature. He was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and died in Paris, France....
- The Charterhouse of ParmaThe Charterhouse of ParmaThe Charterhouse of Parma is a novel published in 1839 by Stendhal.-Plot summary:The Charterhouse of Parma tells the story of the young Italian nobleman Fabrice del Dongo and his adventures from his birth in 1798 to his death...
by StendhalStendhalMarie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme... - The Stars by Edgar MorinEdgar MorinEdgar Morin is a French philosopher and sociologist born Edgar Nahoum in Paris on July 8, 1921. He is of Judeo-Spanish origin. He is known for the transdisciplinarity of his works.- Biography :...
- A Happy DeathA Happy DeathA Happy Death was the first novel by French writer-philosopher Albert Camus. The existentialist topic of the book is the "will to happiness," the conscious creation of one's happiness, and the need of time to do so...
by Albert CamusAlbert CamusAlbert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957... - The History of Surrealism by Maurice NadeauMaurice NadeauMaurice Nadeau is a French writer and editor. He was born in Paris. One of his well-known works, translated into several languages, is the Histoire du surréalisme , published in French in 1944 and in English 21 years later, translated by Richard Howard. Nadeau turned 100 in May 2011.- External...
- The Little PrinceThe Little PrinceThe Little Prince , first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ....
by Antoine de Saint-ExupéryAntoine de Saint-ExupéryAntoine de Saint-Exupéry , officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry , was a French writer, poet and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of France's highest literary awards, and in 1939 was the winner of the U.S. National Book Award...