Stanford, Donald E. (Donald Elwin), 1913-1998

American poet and former editor of Southern Review.

Donald E. Stanford (1913-1998) received his B.A. from Stanford University (1933), M.A. from Harvard University (1934), and Ph. D. from Stanford University (1953). He came to LSU in 1949 where he taught literature and helped revive and co-edit The Southern Review.

Epithet: academic writer and literary critic

A distinguished educator and author, Donald Stanford was born in Amherst, Mass., in 1913. He received a B.A. from Stanford University in 1933, a master's from Harvard in 1934. After teaching for a number of years, he received a Ph.D in 1953 from Stanford. He accepted a position at Louisiana State University as assistant professor of English, where he remained until retirement in 1983. He resided in Baton Rouge, La., until his death in 1998.

Stanford revived THE SOUTHERN REVIEW and served as co-editor with Lewis Simpson. Under their leadership, it became a major literary journal, with an emphasis on such Southern writers as Caroline Gordon, Robert Penn Warren, and Eudora Welty. Among Stanford's own scholarly works are editions on the poetry of Edward Taylor, Robert Bridges, S. Foster Damon, and John Masefield; the letters of Robert Bridges and John Masefield; numerous articles and reviews; critical studies; and three volumes of poetry.

Biographical Note

Donald Elwin Stanford was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on February 7th, 1913. He s obtained both his BA and Phd from Stanford and his MA from Harvard all in English. Before embarking on his teaching career, Stanford was a free-lance writer, and a member of the literary group known as the `Winters circle', centered around Yvor Winters himself. Winters helped the aspiring poets and writers learn more about the art of creative writing, mainly through criticism of one anothers work.

In 1949 Stanford was appointed Instructor to the Alumni Professor of English at Louisiana State University and was promoted to Professor of English in 1953 and then Alumni Professor Emeritus in 1979. He married Maryanna Peterson in 1953 and became the editor of the [unk] Review in 1963. In his capacity as editor of the Review Stanford communicated with those writers and poets who had been an important part of his early writing career: Yvor Winters, Janet Lewis, Elisabeth Bishop, J.V. Cunningham, Allen Tate and Ann Stanford, to name a few.

Throughout his career Stanford received several accolades. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1959, Distinguished Faculty Fellowship in 1973 and Distinguished Research Master in 1982 He retired as Professor of English and editor of the Southern Review in 1983.

Among his published works are: New England Earth (poems) 1941; The Traveler (poems) 1955; The Poems of Edward Taylor 1960; Edward Taylor 1965; Nine Essays in Modern Literature 1965; The Selected Poems of Robert Bridges 1974; The Selected Poems of S. Foster Damon 1974; Revolution and Convention in Modern Poetry 1983; In the Classic Mode: The Achievement of Robert Bridges (2 vols.) 1983, 84; John Masefield: Letters to Margaret Bridges 1984, John Masefield Selected Poems 1984; The Cartesian Lawnmower and Other Poems 1984.

Stanford also contributed to journals such as the Southern Review, Hudson Review, [unk] Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hopkins Quarterly, etc.

DONALD FLWIN STANFORD

Contributed to: Southern Review, Hodson Review, Sewanee Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hopkins Quarterly, etc.

Memberships: Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, PEN, MLA, SAMLA, SCM.