Joseph Warren Beach (January 14, 1880 – August 13, 1957) was an American poet, novelist, critic, educator and literary scholar.

Life

Joseph Warren Beach was born in

Gloversville, New York Gloversville is a city in the Mohawk Valley region of Upstate New York, and the most populous city in Fulton County. Gloversville was once the hub of the United States' glovemaking industry, with over two hundred manufacturers in Gloversville an ...

. His parents were Dr. Eugene Beach, who was a physician, and Sarah Jessup Warren Beach. Beach had been drawn to the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

from Gloversville, by the school's president, his father-in-law,

Cyrus Northrop Cyrus Northrop (September 30, 1834 – April 3, 1922) was an American university president. Early life Cyrus Northrop, Sr. was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University in 1857 where he was a member of both Alpha Sigma Ph ...

. For teachers there, "he wrote his first poetry and his brilliant undergraduate papers," wrote University of Minnesota historian James Gray.On this day in history: UMNnews: U of M
Following Beach's graduation from the

with a B.A. in 1900, he became an instructor in rhetoric. After earning his M.A. (1902) and Ph.D. (1907) 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 high ...

, Beach returned to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

in 1907 to join the faculty of the Department of English at the University of Minnesota. Starting as Assistant Professor, he became Associate Professor in 1917 and Professor in 1924. Beach chaired the English Department from 1940 to 1948, after which time he retired. William van O'Connor, noted critic and professor in the English Department, wrote that at the time of his death Beach was "the most distinguished scholar" the department had ever had on its faculty. After retirement from the University of Minnesota, Beach continued teaching until his death. He taught at

, the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

, 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, ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

in Strasbourg,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

and the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Works

Beach was the author of a number of works of poetry, literary criticism, and fiction. He was one of the first academic scholars to work on literary figures such as

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

(''The Method of Henry James'' (1918)),

George Meredith George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. '' The Ord ...

(''The Comic Spirit in Meredith'' (1911)), and Thomas Hardy (''The Technique of Thomas Hardy'' (1922)). Allen Tate called Beach's book on Henry James "a critical masterpiece, as its insights have not been replaced or improved upon to any great extent by later critics." Beach was also an authority on nineteenth-century literature, and especially British Romantic poetry. He published his magnum opus, ''The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry'' in 1936. Beach's ''The Making of the Auden Canon'' (1957) was a study of how

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 ...

revised his earlier-published poems as his view of the world changed. His other books include ''The Outlook for American Prose'' (1926), ''American Fiction: 1920-1940'' (1941), and ''Obsessive Images: Symbolism in Poetry of the 1930s and 1940s'' (1960). Beach also brought out three volumes of his own poetry--''Sonnets of the Head and Heart'' (1903), ''Beginning With Plato'' (1944), and ''Involuntary Witness'' (1950)--as well as one novel--''Glass Mountain'' (1930)--and a book of short stories--''Meek Americans'' (1925). His letters and papers are housed in the Library of Congress and at the University of Minnesota library.

Family

By his first wife, Elisabeth Northrop (1871–1917, m. 1907), he had two sons, Northrop (1912-2002) and Warren (1914-1999). His second wife was the author Dagmar Doneghy (1888-1966), whom he married in 1918.

References

*Life in ''The National Cyclopædia of American Biography'' (47, 1965: 596-97) *William Van O'Connor (editor), ''Forms of Modern Fiction: Essays Collected in Honor of Joseph Warren Beach'' (1959)

Notes

External links

*
At ''Representative Poetry Online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beach, Joseph Warren 1880 births 1957 deaths American male poets American literary critics Harvard University alumni 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers University of Minnesota alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers