Jarrell, Randall

Jarrell, Randall

(1914–65) poet, literary critic; born in Nashville, Tenn. He was a student of John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren at Vanderbilt University. His academic career was interrupted by his service with the Army Air Corps in World War II (1942–46). His war poems attracted national attention in the 1940s; The Woman at the Washington Zoo (1960) won a National Book Award. Poetry and the Age (1953), a reevaluation of modern American poets, established Jarrell as a critic with unfailing judgment and a witty style, while his one novel Pictures from an Institution (1954), is regarded as a minor classic of the academic-novel genre. Most of his career he taught at the University of North Carolina (1947–51; 1953–54; 1961–65). He was consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (1956–58). His premature death resulted from his being hit by a car.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.