Delmore Schwartz

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Delmore Schwartz (born December 8, 1913 in Brooklyn , New York City , † July 11, 1966 ) was an American writer and poet of Jewish origin.

Schwartz was born in Brooklyn in 1913 to Jewish Romanian immigrants. His parents separated when he was nine years old. The breakdown of his parents' relationship had a huge impact on Schwartz; in his well-known short story In Dreams Begin Responsibilities he later tried to process this topic literarily.

After studying at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin, Schwartz received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from New York University in 1935 . A subsequent postgraduate course at Harvard University , he finished without a further academic degree. However, his essay Poetry as Imitation was awarded the Bowdoin Prize in the humanities by Harvard University in 1936. From 1940, Schwarz took on a teaching position at Harvard, initially as a lecturer without a permanent position ( Briggs-Copeland Lecturer ) and then as an assistant professor ( Assistant Professor ). After twelve years, he quit his work at Harvard in 1947, believing he was seeing a growing anti-Semitic mood there, and returned to New York.

His first published work was the 1937 short story In Dreams Begin Responsibilities . These and other short stories and poems appeared in his first book, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories (1938). It was well received and Schwartz became a well-known figure in New York's intellectual circles. He became a Democratic Socialist and worked with Irving Howe .

In the next three decades Schwartz published numerous stories, poems and plays and published the Partisan Review from 1943 to 1955 . In particular, his short stories, published in 1948 in the anthology The World is a Wedding , found recognition in literary criticism as a successful depiction of Jewish middle-class life during the Great Depression . In 1962 , for example, the renowned Jewish monthly magazine Commentary viewed Delmore Schwartz's short stories in a review as "the definitive portrait of the Jewish middle class in New York during the Depression"

In 1959 Schwartz was the youngest among those honored with the Bollingen Prize . He received the award for a collection of poems published that year ( Summer Knowledge: New and Selected Poems ). This collection also includes Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day .

His later life was marked by alcoholism and finally by insanity; the story of this downward spiral that followed its initial success is based on Saul Bellow 's novel Humboldt's Gift (1975 German Humboldt's Legacy ).

In 1962 Schwartz began teaching creative writing at Syracuse University . One of his students was the future singer and songwriter Lou Reed , who dedicated several songs to his mentor (especially " European Son "). Schwartz is said to have said to Reed: "You can write and should you sell yourself (sell out) and there is a heaven from which you can be followed, then I will follow you". Reed should never forget that. He visited in 1966 Schwartz's funeral, and years later told Reed in his song " My House " the story of a ghost in his new house, the Delmore on a Ouija board spell. The spirit did not frighten him, but inspired him.

The phrase " In Dreams Begin Responsibilities " is popular with writers and appears in unexpected contexts. It is also used by the rock band U2 in their song Acrobat on the album Achtung Baby .

Delmore Schwartz spent his final years of alcoholism and drug abuse in great seclusion at the Columbia Hotel in New York City. He was buried in Cedar Park Cemetery in Emerson , New Jersey.

Published Writings

German

  • A book that I neither read nor wrote: Gedichte , Göttingen: AltaQuito, 1997
  • The dream of life , Augsburg: Maro-Verlag 2002, ISBN 3875122593
  • Yeats died on Saturdays in France & other poems , Göttingen: AltaQuito, 2003
  • A dream by Whitman: & other poems , Göttingen: AltaQuito, 2009

English

  • In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (1938), a collection of short stories and poems - ISBN 0811206807
  • Shenandoah (1941), a verse drama
  • Genesis (1943), a prose poem about the growth of a person
  • World Is a Wedding (1948), a collection of short stories
  • Vaudeville for a Princess and Other Poems (1950)
  • Summer Knowledge: New and Selected Poems (1959)
  • Successful Love and Other Stories (1961)

Posthumously published:

  • Selected Essays (1970, edited by Donald Dike, David Zucker)
  • Letters of Delmore Schwartz (1984, edited by Robert Phillips)
  • The Ego Is Always at the Wheel: Bagatelles (1986, ed. Robert Phillips), a collection of bizarre humorous short essays
  • Last and Lost Poems (1989, ed. New Directions Publishing)

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ See Delmore Schwartz on the biographical information . On: Academy of American Poets . See also Delmore Schwartz Facts . On: Your Dictionary . Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  2. ↑ See Robert W. Flint: The Stories of Delmore Schwartz . In: Commentary . April 1962. Online [1] . Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  3. ↑ See Delmore Schwartz 1913 - 1966 . On: Poetry Foundation . Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  4. ↑ See also Lou Reed: O Delmore how I miss youDreams from his teacher . On: Poetry Foundation [2] . Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  5. ↑ U2 - Acrobat Lyrics. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
  6. ^ "Sometimes the Grave Is a Fine and Public Place". New York Times. March 28, 2004
personal data
SURNAME Schwartz, Delmore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet and storyteller
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 1966
Place of death Brooklyn , New York City