Matthiessen, F. O. (Francis Otto), 1902-1950

Matthiessen was an American literary scholar, teacher, and critic.

From the description of Papers, 1929-1950. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 122468863

From the guide to the Papers, 1929-1950., (Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University)

F.O. Matthiessen was an American literary critic and a Harvard professor of history and literature.

From the description of Correspondence with Hugh T. Cunningham, 1946-1950. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 612757934

Francis Otto Matthiessen, American historian, literary critic and educator. He was born on February 19, 1902 in Pasadena, California. Matthiessen graduated from Yale University in 1923, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and received his doctorate from Harvard in 1927. He taught at Harvard University from 1929-1950 and chaired its undergraduate program in history and literature. Matthiessen's notable works concern T. S. Eliot, the James family (Alice James, Henry James, Henry James Sr., and William James), and writers of the American Renaissance, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sarah Orne Jewett, Sinclair Lewis, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. He is best known for his book, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (1941).

Matthiessen's life partner was the painter Russell Cheney and the couple shared a cottage in Kittery, Maine. Matthiessen kept his personal life quite private and wished for most of his colleagues to not know he was gay. His friends, however, maintained close relationships with him and Cheney throughout their years together. Cheney died in 1945 of mesenteric thrombosis and Matthiessen never recovered from his death. He committed suicide by jumping from a window in 1950.

From the guide to the F. O. Matthiessen papers, 1900-1964, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)