Rufus Emory Holloway (March 16, 1885 in
Marshall, Missouri
Marshall is a city in Saline County, Missouri, United States. The population was 13,065 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Saline County. The Marshall Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Saline County. It is home to Missouri Val ...
– July 30, 1977 in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...
) was an American literary scholar-educator most known for his books and studies of
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
. His ''Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative'' (1926) was the first biography of a literary figure to win the
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1927.
Life
Holloway received his A.B. from
Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Approximately 1,000 students are enrolled, mostly undergraduates. While affiliated with the United Methodist Church, the college offers a secular curriculum and has a student ...
in 1906 and his M.A. from the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in 1912, where he subsequently taught for a year. While completing further graduate study at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
during the 1913-1914 academic year, his interest in Whitman was encouraged by
John Erskine, causing him to author the Whitman essay for ''
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' is an encyclopedia of literary criticism that was published by Cambridge University Press between 1907 and 1921. Edited and written by an international panel of 171 leading scholars and ...
''. Holloway became an instructor at
Adelphi College
Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York. Adelphi also has centers in Manhattan, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County. There is also a virtual, online campus for remote students. It is the oldest institution of higher ed ...
in 1914 and was promoted to assistant professor in 1916. During World War I, he was a transportation secretary with the
American Expeditionary Force in France and taught at the A.E.F. University in
Beaune
Beaune () is the wine capital of Burgundy in the Côte d'Or department in eastern France. It is located between Lyon and Dijon. Beaune is one of the key wine centers in France, and the center of Burgundy wine production and business. The annua ...
for one year. Returning to Adelphi, he became professor of English in 1919 and remained there until 1937, when he joined the original faculty of
Queens College as a professor of American literature and chair of the English department; in 1954, he retired from teaching and became professor emeritus. He continued to live in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
until moving in with his son in
Coopersburg, Pennsylvania
Coopersburg is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The population of Coopersburg was 2,447 as of the 2020 census. It is a suburb of Allentown and is located miles southeast of Allentown, north of Philadelphia, and west of New York City ...
several months before his death.
''The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman'' (2 vols.) (1921), which took seven years established Holloway's reputation. His work resulted in a comprehensive body of resource materials and brought a much clearer understanding of Whitman's private thought and personal relationships, revealing his creative process.
''Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative'' (1926) pioneered the use of cinema-style narrative techniques in a biography, making it popular with the general public. In ''Whitman as a Subject for Biography'' (1974), Holloway says about it: "My aim was to present an interpretation through a method primarily narrative, yet relying heavily on Whitman's self-revelations."
''Free and Lonesome Heart: The Secret of Walt Whitman'' (1960)
is a reply to critics who had charged him with ignoring evidence of Whitman's sexual orientation and behavior, laying out the controversy surrounding Whitman's "simple homosexual" disposition in the context of the disputed interpretation of "Once I Passed Through a Populous City", developing an extensive apologetic on Whitman's use of paradox and on the necessity for a poet to embody both male and female natures: "The key word in the comprehension of Whitman is 'balance'."
Holloway's last biographical work, ''Portrait of a Poet: The Life of Walt Whitman'', was considered too lengthy for publication; it was ultimately deposited by Holloway in the Berg Collection of the
New York Public Library in 1962. The manuscript repeats much of the argument of ''Free and Lonesome Heart'' and includes detailed appendices supporting his positions.
Holloway died in 1977.
Web sources
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1885 births
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners
20th-century American biographers
American male biographers
1977 deaths
People from Marshall, Missouri