Bonnie Costello (born 1950) is an American literary scholar, currently the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of English at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

. Her books include works on the poets

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood, ...

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American people, American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the N ...

, and

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

, and the relation of visual art to poetry through

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...

and

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

Books

Costello's books include: *''Marianne Moore: Imaginary Possessions'' (Harvard University Press, 1981) *''Elizabeth Bishop: Questions of Mastery'' (Harvard University Press, 1991) *''Shifting Ground: Reinventing Landscape in Modern American Poetry'' (Harvard University Press, 2003) *''Planets on Tables: Poetry, Still Life and the Turning World'' (Cornell University Press, 2008) *''The Plural of Us: Poetry and Community in Auden and Others'' (Princeton University Press, 2017) With Celeste Goodridge and Cristanne Miller she edited ''The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore'' (Knopf, 1997), which ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' listed as one of the notable books of 1997.

Education and career

Costello is a 1972 graduate of

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

. Her doctorate is from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, in 1977. She joined the Boston University faculty in 1977, and became Warren Distinguished Professor in 2017.

Recognition

Costello was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2002. She also became a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1990, and a fellow of the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

in 2011. Her book ''The Plural of Us: Poetry and Community in Auden and Others'' won the Warren–Brooks Award for 2017.

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Costello, Bonnie 1950 births Living people American academics of English literature Bennington College alumni Cornell University alumni Boston University faculty ACLS Fellows Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences