Ward, Aileen, 1919-2016

[Aileen Ward was a] scholar whose sympathetic, insightful biography of the Romantic poet John Keats won the National Book Award in 1964; taught at Wellesley and Barnard before joining the Vassar English department in 1954; later taught at Sarah Lawrence, Brandeis, and New York University; retired in 1990. (source: Library of Congress Authorities, https://lccn.loc.gov/n82001522)

Aileen Ward was an American professor of English literature who won both a National Book Award and a Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for her book "John Keats: The Making of a Poet". Aileen Coursen Ward was born on April 1, 1919, in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Summit, N.J. Her father, Waldron, was a lawyer; her mother was the former Aline Coursen. After earning a B.A. in English from Smith College in 1940, she enrolled in Radcliffe College, where she was awarded her M.A. in 1942 and a doctorate in 1953. Her dissertation was on poetic metaphor. Professor Ward taught at Wellesley and Barnard. She joined the Vassar English department in 1954. Later in her career Ward taught at Sarah Lawrence, Brandeis and New York University. She retired in 1990. Ward spent nine years researching “John Keats: The Making of a Poet". The book won two major awards, the 1964 National Book Award (in the category Arts and Letters (nonfiction)), and the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize of 1963. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966. Ward died on May 31, 2016. At the time she was still working on a biography of William Blake, as she had been for nearly 50 years. (Source: Wikipedia contributors, "Aileen Ward," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aileen_Ward&oldid=1022201174 (accessed July 13, 2021))

Aileen Ward (1919-2016) was the American author of a biography of John Keats, John Keats, the Making of a Poet, for which she won a National Book Award in 1964 and the Duff Cooper Prize in 1963. She edited Selected Poems of Jean Garrigue, published in 1992. At the time of her death, she had been working on a biography of William Blake for nearly 50 years. She was a professor of English literature at various American universities. She lived for many years with her partner, poet Nancy Cardozo (1919–2014), the author of a biography of Maud Gonne as well as of poetry and short stories.