Howard Wilson Baker, Jr (April 5, 1905 – July 25, 1990) was an American poet, dramatist, and literary critic.

Background

Baker was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. While pursuing graduate studies in English at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, he befriended

Yvor Winters Arthur Yvor Winters (October 17, 1900 – January 25, 1968) was an American poet and literary critic. Life Winters was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived there until 1919 except for brief stays in Seattle and in Pasadena, where his grandparen ...

, and was co-editor of the literary magazine ''Gyroscope''. After earning his master's degree, he moved to Paris to study at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

. While there, he married the novelist Dorothy Baker, and met and was influenced by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

and

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...

, who helped him to publish his first work, the autobiographical novel ''Orange Valley'' (1931). After returning to the United States in 1931, he took a position teaching English at

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

. From 1937 to 1943, he then taught English at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. In addition to collaborating with his wife, Baker produced poetry collections of his own, including ''Letter from the Country'' (1941) and ''Ode to the Sea'' (1954), as well as a collection of essays on

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

culture, ''Persephone's Cave: Cultural Accumulations of the Early Greeks'' (1979). Baker died from cancer in Porterville, California on Wednesday, July 25, 1990."Howard Wilson Baker," in "Deaths Elsewhere," ''The Jackson Sun''.

References

Research resources

The papers of Dorothy and Howard Baker, 1926-1990
(33 linear ft.) are housed in th

a
Stanford University Libraries

External links

1905 births 1990 deaths Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences alumni University of Paris alumni University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Harvard University faculty Poets from Philadelphia 20th-century American poets 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American male dramatists and playwrights American male poets American expatriates in France 20th-century American male writers {{US-poet-1900s-stub