Delmore Schwartz (1913–66) was an American poet, short-story writer, and literary critic known for his introspective explorations of identity and cultural alienation. His work, influenced by his Jewish heritage and personal struggles, earned him recognition as one of his generation’s most gifted writers.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Schwartz studied at the University of Wisconsin, New York University, and Harvard. His literary career took off with In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (1938,) a short story and poetry collection that brought him immediate fame. His subsequent works included Shenandoah (1941,) a verse play, and Genesis, Book I (1943,) a modernist epic. His short story collections, The World Is a Wedding (1948) and Successful Love, and Other Stories (1961,) explored middle-class Jewish family life.
Schwartz was a respected editor, contributing to Partisan Review (1943–55) and The New Republic (1955–57.) His poetry collection New and Selected Poems, 1938–58 (1959) won the Bollingen Prize. Despite his literary success, Schwartz struggled with mental illness and financial instability, leading to his decline. His life and work inspired Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift (1975,) which depicted a character based on Schwartz. The novel won the 1976 Pulitzer for Fiction and contributed to Bellow’s Nobel Prize in Literature the same year.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Delmore Schwartz
Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again.
—Delmore Schwartz
Topics: Authors & Writing
And hence the poet must seek to be essentially anonymous,
He must die a little death each morning,
He must swallow his toad and study his vomit
as Baudelaire studied la charogne of Jeanne Duval.
—Delmore Schwartz
Topics: Poetry
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
—Delmore Schwartz
Topics: Reflection, Time, Time Management
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