Richard Palmer Blackmur (January 21, 1904 – February 2, 1965) was an American

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

Life

Blackmur was born and grew up in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

. He attended

Cambridge High and Latin School Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, but was expelled in 1918. An

autodidact Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individua ...

, Blackmur worked in a bookshop after high school, and attended lectures at

Harvard University 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 ...

without enrolling. He was managing editor of the literary quarterly '' Hound & Horn'' from 1928 to 1930, at which time he resigned, although he continued to contribute to the magazine until its demise in 1934. In 1930 he married Helen Dickson. In 1935 he published his first volume of criticism, ''The Double Agent''; during the 1930s his criticism was influential among many modernist poets and the

New Critics New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as ...

. In 1940 Blackmur moved to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where he taught first creative writing and then English literature for the next twenty-five years. In 1947, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship. He founded and directed the university's Christian Gauss Seminars in Criticism, named in honor of his colleague

Christian Gauss Christian Gauss (1878 – 1951) was a literary critic and professor of literature. Biography Gauss was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His father had fled Württemberg when Prussia began to dominate it in the 1860s. The son graduated from the Univers ...

. He met other influential poets while he taught at Princeton. They include W. S. Merwin and

John Berryman John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in th ...

. Merwin later published an anthology dedicated to Blackmur and Berryman, and a book of his own poetry (''The Moving Target'') dedicated to Blackmur. He taught at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1961—62. Blackmur died in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

and was buried at the

Pittsfield Cemetery Pittsfield Cemetery is a historic cemetery at 203 Wahconah Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Established in 1850, it is good example of a rural cemetery, and is the resting ground of many prominent Pittsfield residents, with a number of arch ...

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

. His papers are held at Princeton University.

In popular culture

Frederick Crews Frederick Campbell Crews (born 20 February 1933) is an American essayist and literary critic. Professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews is the author of numerous books, including ''The Tragedy of Manners: M ...

parodied Blackmur as "P. R. Honeycomb" in his 1963 book of satirical literary criticism ''

The Pooh Perplex ''The Pooh Perplex'' is a 1963 book by Frederick Crews that includes essays on ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' as a satire of literary criticism. Crews published a sequel in 2003, ''Postmodern Pooh''. Background, writing, and publication Frederick Crews ...

''. Saul Bellow based the snob figure of the critic Sewell on him in the novel ''

Humboldt's Gift ''Humboldt's Gift'' is a 1975 novel by Canadian-American author Saul Bellow. It won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and contributed to Bellow's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year. Plot The novel, which Bellow initially intend ...

'' (1975).

Works

;Poetry *''From Jordan's Delight'' 1937 *''The Second World'', 1942 *''The Good European'', 1947 *''Poems of R. P. Blackmur'', Princeton University Press, 1977 ;Criticism *''The Double Agent: essays in craft and elucidation'', 1935 *''The Expense of Greatness'', 1940 *''Language as Gesture,'' 1952 *''Form and value in modern poetry'', Doubleday, 1952 *''The Lion and the Honeycomb'', 1955 *''Eleven Essays in the European Novel,'' 1964 * *Denis Donoghue, ed. ''Selected essays of R.P. Blackmur'', Ecco Press, 1986,

Notes

;Attribution * *Robert Boyers, ''R. P. Blackmur, poet-critic: toward a view of poetic objects'', University of Missouri Press, 1980,

External links

* Finding aid t
R.P. Blackmur papers
an
manuscripts
at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

from ''The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism''

from ''A Princeton Companion'' by Alexander Leitch (1978)
"No Success Like Failure"
a discussion of Blackmur's career from the New York Review of Books (abstract online; full text for subscribers only) *Bloom, James D. The Stock of Available Reality: R.P. Blackmur and

. ( Bucknell University Press, 1984)
"Why R. P. Blackmur Found James's Golden Bowl Inhumane"
''

ELH ''ELH'' (''English Literary History'') is an academic journal established in 1934 at Johns Hopkins University, devoted to the study of major works in the English language, particularly British literature. It covers developments in literature thr ...

'', Volume 68, Number 3, Fall 2001, pp. 725–743
"A Critic's Obscurity: R. P. Blackmur"
Maurice Kramer, ''

College English ''College English'' is an official publication of the American National Council of Teachers of English and is aimed at college-level teachers and scholars of English. The peer-reviewed journal publishes articles on a range of topics related to the ...

'', Vol. 22, No. 8 (May, 1961), pp. 553–555
"R. P. Blackmur: The Politics of a New Critic"
Russell Fraser, ''

The Sewanee Review ''The Sewanee Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1892. It is the oldest continuously published quarterly in the United States. It publishes original fiction and poetry, essays, reviews, and literary criticism. History ''Th ...

'', Vol. 87, No. 4 (Fall, 1979), pp. 557–572
"No Success Like Failure"
Michael Wood, ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', May 7, 1987 {{DEFAULTSORT:Blackmur, Richard 1904 births 1965 deaths American literary critics School of Letters faculty Princeton University faculty Writers from Springfield, Massachusetts Academics of the University of Cambridge 20th-century American non-fiction writers Cambridge Rindge and Latin School alumni Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters