Jarrell, Randall, 1914-1965

Randall Jarrell (6 May 1914 – 14 October 1965), the noted American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist, was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He attended Vanderbilt University where he studied under Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, and John Crowe Ransom, edited the student humor magazine, captained the tennis team, received a Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude. After graduating from Vanderbilt, Jarrell served as a teaching instructor at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. There he worked on his master's thesis on the poetry of Alfred Edward Housman and shared rooms with writers Robie Macauley, Peter Taylor, and poet Robert Lowell. Lowell and Jarrell remained good friends and peers until Jarrell's death. The collection contains numerous references to all these men, especially Warren, Tate, and Ransom.

After receiving his masters' degree from Vanderbilt in 1938, Jarrell taught at the University of Texas at Austin from 1939 to 1942, where he met his first wife, Mackie Langham. In 1942 he left the university to join the United States Army Air Forces. The collection contains a significant amount of material relating to his military service. His war-time experiences inspired much of his early poetry. He later taught at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. and the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. Early in the 1950's Jarrell and Mackie separated and divorced. Jarrell married his second wife Mary von Schrader Jarrell in 1952. On October 14, 1965, Jarrell died while walking along a road in Chapel Hill near dusk.