63-623: Zukovsky or Zukofsky may refer to: People [ edit ] Louis Zukofsky (1904–1978), American poet Paul Zukofsky (1943–2017), American violinist and conductor Michele Zukovsky , American clarinetist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Fictional characters [ edit ] Valentin Zukovsky , a fictional character whom actor Robbie Coltrane played in two James Bond films: GoldenEye and The World
126-636: A CBS Radio show, where as one of the experts he discussed great literature. He was made a Fellow in American Letters of the Library of Congress and also remained president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters . He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution . As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt
189-571: A "legendary classroom presence"; he became a full professor in 1942, and taught English until 1959, at which point he became Professor Emeritus until his death in 1972. David Lehman writes that "The 1920s were a great decade for Mark. At Columbia, he had remarkable students, Whittaker Chambers and Trilling among them. Van Doren published scholarly books on John Dryden and Edwin Arlington Robinson , served as literary editor of The Nation (where he met Dorothy , née Graffe, also
252-447: A "partita" in five sub-sections using a range of different forms. The late, mostly long, movements of "A" are characterized by the adoption of a diversity of flexible forms capable of absorbing great variation of materials, from the conversational, to newspapers and media, to book reading, and the treatment of these materials ranges from quotation to radical reduction to creative transmutation, including homophonic transcription. A sense of
315-612: A B.A. in 1914. In 1920, he earned a Ph.D. from what became the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University , while also a member of the Boar's Head Society , a student society at the university devoted to poetry. Mark Van Doren joined the Columbia University faculty in 1920, having been preceded by his brother Carl. He went on to become one of Columbia's greatest teachers and
378-481: A brief spell there was the collective The Objectivist Press, but the group attracted only limited attention at the time. Zukofsky's major work was the very long poem "A" —he never referred to it without the quotation marks—which he began in 1928 and would work on intermittently for most of the rest of his life, finally completing the poem in 1974. He predetermined that the work would have 24 sections, which he called movements, but both formally and thematically he allowed
441-611: A few months after completing the latter work and proof-reading the complete "A" , Zukofsky died on May 12, 1978. He had been awarded National Endowment for the Arts Grants in 1967 and 1968, the National Institute of Arts and Letters "award for creative work in literature" in 1976, and an honorary doctorate from Bard College in 1977. As a student Zukofsky wrote prolifically in imitation of many styles, both traditional and free verse. However, his first distinctive work
504-501: A lifelong acquaintance with Zukofsky despite lambasting him as a "painfully inarticulate soul" in a 1927 article ), John Dewey , John Erskine , Lionel Trilling and Mortimer Adler (who may have enjoined Zukofsky to study the humanities instead of engineering ). He joined the Boar's Head Society and published in the Morningside , a student literary journal. Although he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa upon completing nearly all of
567-561: A sequence of eighty-one short poems (8 lines of five words each), highly compressed reworkings of botanical and literary materials. Although planned for completion for his 80th birthday, he as usual worked ahead of schedule and finished the sequence in January 1978, already planning a follow-up sequence on trees to be entitled Gamut: 90 trees . However, he only composed the epigraph to this latter work when he died in May 1978. Although Zukofsky and
630-429: A single total work. Zukofsky promptly decided this would be the final movement of "A" , although he still had two further movement to write. "A"-22 & -23 were conceived on an epic scale: each 1000 lines, with an 800-line main body framed by 100-line segments, the main bodies each compressed radically reworked materials from history and literature respectively spanning 6000 years in chronological order. In this late work
693-524: A travelogue of the Zukofskys' 1957 trip to Europe, written in a more relaxed and accessible manner than is typical of his poetry. As his reputation rose, Zukofsky collected short poetry in two volumes (1965, 1966) was published by Norton, his first books with a commercial publisher. Soon after his collected critical essay were gathered into Prepositions (1968). On finally completing "A" in 1974, Zukofsky promptly started on his last major work, 80 Flowers ,
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#1732773323023756-855: A volume of selected poems for the Library of America (2006). During his lifetime, Zukofsky had some contact and interaction with Augusto de Campos and the Brazilian Concrete poetry movement. French poets in particular have been attracted to Zukofsky's example. Anne-Marie Albiach composed an intricate and much admired translation of "A"-9 in 1970, which helped bring Zukofsky to French attention. Other French poets engaged in translating Zukofsky include Jacques Roubaud and Pierre Alféri . A complete French translation of "A" (except for "A"-24) by François Dominique and Serge Gavronsky came out to considerable acclaim in 2020. The primary repository of Louis Zukofsky's manuscripts, notebooks and papers
819-401: A work on this scale, and "A"-12 did not appear complete until the first book publication of "A" 1–12 in 1959. Much of the 1950s was preoccupied with another very large-scale work, Bottom: on Shakespeare , which began as an essay growing out of a summer course on Renaissance literature he taught at Hamilton College in 1947 but grew into a massive critical meditation on Shakespeare , arguing for
882-663: A writer) and edited an anthology of world poetry that sold so well it enabled the Van Dorens to buy their house on Bleecker Street in the West Village in New York City in February 1929, just months before the stock market tumbled and the 'roaring' decade ran out. At a moment when Ivy League prejudice against Jews was not uncommon, Van Doren acquired a reputation for philo-Semitism with an essay he published in 1927 in
945-538: Is "A"-7, often taken to be Zukofsky's first distinctly individual poem that looks forward to much that will follow. This movement is a set of seven sonnets which focus on sawhorses marking off an area of a street under repair, which are imaginatively animated, a dynamic image of the poem itself as a construction site simultaneously constructed and deconstructed. In a number of later movements, Zukofsky would similarly adopt strict traditional forms combined with unconventional materials to create highly compacted poems: "A"-9 takes
1008-548: Is Not Enough See also [ edit ] Zhukovsky (surname) [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with the surname Zukovsky . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zukovsky&oldid=1204639138 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description
1071-506: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Louis Zukofsky Louis Zukofsky (January 23, 1904 – May 12, 1978) was an American poet. He was the primary instigator and theorist of the so-called "Objectivist" poets , a short lived collective of poets who after several decades of obscurity would reemerge around 1960 and become a significant influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad. Louis Zukofsky
1134-652: Is the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton , Robert Lax , John Berryman , Whittaker Chambers , and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac . He
1197-627: The Constitution for the Federation of Earth . In 1922 Mark Van Doren married Dorothy Graffe , novelist and writer of the memoir The Professor and I (1959), whom he had earlier met at The Nation . His successful book, Anthology of World Poetry , enabled the couple to buy a house on Bleecker Street in New York City in February 1929, before markets collapsed. Their son, Charles Van Doren (1926-2019), briefly achieved renown as
1260-663: The Great Depression with the writings of Marx, Lenin and Henry Adams on American history. Much of Zukofsky's work of the 1930s attempted to bring together modernist formalism with a Leftist political perspective. "A"-10 is a cry of despair in response to the fall of France in June 1940 structured on Bach's Mass in B minor , after which Zukofsky paused work on "A" for some years. In tandem with " A ", Zukofsky continued writing shorter poems throughout his life, although he had difficulties publishing outside of journals during
1323-616: The Menorah Journal , the magazine that years later would be rechristened Commentary . In 'Jewish Students I Have Known,' Van Doren wrote perceptively and it turned out somewhat prophetically about some of the gifted young men he was teaching at Columbia. As Van Doren's student, the great art historian Meyer Schapiro already displayed the 'passion to know and make known.' Louis Zukofsky was 'a subtle poet' with 'an inarticulate soul.' Clifton Fadiman impressed with his tremendous fund of knowledge. About Trilling, who soon joined him on
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#17327733230231386-545: The "Objectivists" would have little impact in the 1930s, their later rediscovery around 1960 would have a major influence on a broad range of younger poets known as the New American Poets . This was particularly the case because most of the Objectivists produced their most mature and innovative work during the 1960s and 1970s, which in many respects represented a salutatory formal emphasis that contrasted with
1449-478: The 1930s became severely strained because of Pound's increasingly strident fascism and anti-semitism, yet Zukofsky always maintained the highest regard for Pound's poetic abilities. Pound put Zukofsky in contact with William Carlos Williams , who would remain a major supporter of and influence on the younger poet. Williams found Zukofsky to be a valuable critic and editor of his own work, which he acknowledge by dedicating The Wedge (1944) to L.Z. . Pound persuaded
1512-405: The 1930s, Zukofsky worked in obscurity and found it difficult to publish, but gradually from the mid-1950s younger poets, most notably Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley , began to seek him out because of their desire to reconnect with the more innovative strands of poetic modernism developing from Pound and Williams. The poets and editors Cid Corman and Jonathan Williams published major works in
1575-562: The Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. He was interred at Cornwall Hollow Cemetery in Connecticut . His correspondence with Allen Tate is at Vanderbilt University . Since 1962, students of Columbia College have honored a great teacher at the school each year with the "Mark Van Doren Award". John Updike wrote that "Van Doren's Shakespeare got me through Harry Levin 's course back in 1951. Whenever I reread
1638-648: The Columbia faculty, Van Doren was particularly insightful. The young Trilling possessed 'dignity and grace,' Van Doren wrote, and whatever he elects to do 'will be lovely, for it will be the fruit of a pure intelligence slowly ripened in not too fierce a sun.'" Also among his students were the poets John Berryman and Robert Lax , novelist Anthony Robinson , psychologist Walter B. Pitkin Jr. , Japanologist Donald Keene , writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton and chemist Roald Hoffmann . Lehman writes that "His teaching
1701-468: The Depression era. His first collection of shorter poems, 55 Poems , did not appear until 1941, although it represented work completed by the mid-1930, including "Poem beginning 'The'" and "'Mantis.'" Another collection, Anew , came out in 1946. In the mid-1930s he also wrote his only play, Arise, Arise , a political dream play, which however remained unperformed and unpublished until the 1960s. During
1764-655: The United States, Louis Zukofsky was a precocious student in the local public school system. As a boy he frequented the nearby Yiddish theatres on the Bowery , where he saw classic works by Shakespeare , Ibsen , Strindberg , and Tolstoy performed in Yiddish. Zukofsky began writing poetry at an early age, and his earliest known publications were in the student literary journal of Stuyvesant High School , from which he graduated at age 15. While when young he translated from
1827-489: The completion of a Ph.D. or an eventual tenure-track academic appointment; according to a retrospective 2002 analysis by Mark Scroggins, "Then as now, writing one's thesis on a recently dead and as yet uncanonized figure (Adams had died only six years before) was not the path to academic preferment [...] [Zukofsky's inability to secure an instructorship] might have been a matter of personality: quiet and withdrawn, Zukofsky no doubt seemed less than promising teaching material. And
1890-746: The editor of Poetry magazine, Harriet Monroe , to allow Zukofsky to edit an issue showcasing younger poets, resulting in the famous "Objectivists" issue (Feb. 1931), which included Zukofsky's statement "Sincerity and Objectification." Although all the poets, including Zukofsky, denied any intention of forming a distinct poetic movement, a core group became identified as the Objectivist poets, which included besides Zukofsky, his friends Charles Reznikoff , George Oppen and Carl Rakosi , and Lorine Niedecker as well as Pound's friend and protégé Basil Bunting . Zukofsky edited An "Objectivists" Anthology (1932), published by George Oppen's To, Publishers, and for
1953-459: The everyday is interwoven with contemporary events, with "A"-15 responding to the assassination of President Kennedy and "A"-18 darkened by the trauma of the Vietnam War . In contrast to the usually long movements, "A"-16 is just four words scattered across a single page, while "A"-17 is a homage to William Carlos Williams on his death in 1963 in the form of a catalogue of quotations recording
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2016-568: The intricate form of Guido Cavalcanti's canzone, "Donna me prega," using content mostly adapted from Karl Marx 's Capital . A related major poem, although outside of "A" , is "'Mantis'" which adopts the form of a sestina by Dante to create a political lyric, to which Zukofsky added "An Interpretation" reflecting on the question of poetic form relevant to contemporary concerns. In counterpoint to these highly formal and compacted movements, there are sprawling free-verse movements, notably "A"-8, whose depiction of contemporary world interviews vignettes of
2079-470: The journal Pagany , and Adams would remain a significant intellectual influence on Zukofsky's work. One of Zukofsky's closest friends during the 1920s was his Columbia classmate, Whittaker Chambers , and throughout the 1930s he aligned himself with Marxism, although he never joined the Communist Party. Despite his academic success, Zukofsky was not offered an instructorship that may have facilitated
2142-483: The late 1950s, especially the first book publication of "A" by Corman's Origin Press. Along with the other "Objectivists", from around 1960 Zukofsky was in considerable demand among these younger poets, and consequently was able to publish numerous volumes over the last decade and half of his life, a period when he wrote prolifically and inventively. With the completion of Bottom , Zukofsky returned to "A" with "A"-13,
2205-404: The light of day when self-published in 1948, it has since been reprinted three times. In 1948, Zukofsky returned to "A" after a hiatus of eight years with the second half of "A"-9, which again copies the complex form of Cavalcanti's canzone, but now using content primarily derived from Spinoza 's Ethics . The distinct concerns of the two-halves of "A"-9 mark a decisive shift of emphasis from
2268-465: The looseness of most Beat and projectivist verse. Aside from Duncan and Creeley, among the many American poets who have acknowledged the influence of Zukofsky in their work include Theodore Enslin , Ronald Johnson , John Taggart and Michael Palmer . In the 1970s, Zukofsky's formalism was a major model for many of the Language poets , and the prominent Language writer, Charles Bernstein , edited
2331-494: The modern Yiddish poetry of Yehoash (Solomon Blumgarten), there is no indication he ever considered writing in Yiddish himself. Beginning shortly before his 16th birthday in January 1920, Zukofsky attended Columbia University 's undergraduate men's college and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences , where he studied English. Some of his teachers and classmates subsequently emerged as important lodestars of midcentury literature and culture, namely Mark Van Doren (who maintained
2394-463: The most discussed and debated of Zukofsky's works. He also finished a novel begun in the early 1950s, Little , an autobiographical account centered on a child violin prodigy, based on his son Paul. Aside from "A" , several collections of mostly short poems were published in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and particularly notable is the long poem "4 Other Countries" included in Barely and widely (1958),
2457-586: The only time he lived outside the New York City metropolitan area . In 1934, Zukofsky began work as a researcher with the Works Projects Administration (WPA), and over the course of the rest of the decade he worked on various WPA projects, most notably the Index of American Design , a history of American material culture . In the same year, he met Celia Thaew (1913–1980) and they married in 1939; their only child, Paul Zukofsky (1943–2017),
2520-442: The poem to develop as the occasion dictated. "A"-1 opens at a performance of Bach 's St. Matthew Passion , whose fugal intricacies became one of the formal models for the poem. The first six movements are predominately autobiographical but all directly or indirectly considering the question of the proper form for the poem at hand—"A"-6 ends by posing the question: "With all this material / To what distinction—." The preliminary answer
2583-422: The political and social to the more personal and philosophical, but without repudiating the earlier focus. Avoiding pre-determined narratives or themes, Zukofsky always intended that "A"' s development would be determined by historical and personal changes over the time of the poem's composition. This was affirmed with "A"-11, which mimics the form of a ballata by Cavalcanti but directly addresses his wife and son on
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2646-455: The priority of the sensuous eye over the abstract mind. This work was as much a statement on poetics as a exegesis of Shakespeare presented in the unorthodox critical manner Zukofsky preferred, marshalling and collaging large numbers of quotations from numerous texts. When finally published in 1964, Bottom was accompanied by a companion volume consisting of Celia Zukofsky's musical setting of Shakespeare's play Pericles, Prince of Tyre . Since
2709-461: The same period he wrote a work of experimental prose, Thanks to the Dictionary , improvising with the vocabulary and definitions found in the dictionary. In the early 1940s he attempted more conventional short stories, of which the novella length Ferdinand is the most significant. One of Zukofsky's most eccentric works was Le Style Apollinaire/The Writing of Guillaume Apollinaire (1934), which
2772-409: The son of immigrant Jews, and concludes by asserting his poetic independence from the claims of family and his Jewish heritage, opting instead for a more cosmopolitan poetic identity. Pound remained an important supporter of Zukofsky in the following years, famously dedicating Guide to Kulchur (1938) "To Louis Zukofsky and Basil Bunting strugglers in the desert." Their relationship over the course of
2835-449: The soundscape tends to predominate over thematic or narrative orders, or as he once put it, "not to fathom time but literally to sound it as on an instrument." Another major work that preoccupied Zukofsky for much of the 1960s was the controversial Catullus , a homophonic translation from Latin done in collaboration with his wife of the entire existent works of Catullus . Although it outraged many when first published, this has been one of
2898-697: The staff of The Nation from 1924–1928 and again from 1935–1938. He was a member of the Society for the Prevention of World War III . In 1940, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Collected Poems 1922–1938 . This came only a year after his elder brother Carl had won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Benjamin Franklin . Van Doren helped Ginsberg avoid jail time in June 1949 by testifying on his behalf when Ginsberg
2961-422: The topic of mortality. From this point the poet's immediate family will usually play a major role while the poem becomes more expansive in its concerns. This movement was shortly followed up with "A"-12, a sprawling 135-page collage interweaving the personal, current events and philosophy, primarily represented by Aristotle , Paracelsus and Spinoza. However, at the time there was little chance that he could publish
3024-449: The two poets' friendship. "A"-21 is a complete and quirky translation of Plautus ' play Rudens (The Rope) interspersed with additional "Voice offs" of Zukofsky's invention. In 1968, Celia Zukofsky presented her husband with an elaborate musical assemblage: against the musical score of Handel 's "Hapsichord Pieces" she arranged four voices consisting entirely of quotations from across Zukofsky's writings, suggesting one possible version of
3087-529: The undergraduate curriculum in three and a half years, much like Adler, Zukofsky did not receive a Columbia College degree after dropping out of the required physical education course. Nevertheless, he was admitted to the Graduate School, receiving an M.A. in 1924 with a thesis on Henry Adams . He would publish a revised version of this thesis as "Henry Adams: A Criticism in Autobiography" in
3150-512: The unwritten code of anti-Semitism that reigned in the English department--and that would not be broken until Lionel Trilling was hired in 1939--almost certainly told against him. At any rate, Zukofsky's formal schooling ended in 1924, and he would make no attempt to continue to the doctorate." During the 1930-31 academic year, Zukofsky taught English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison ,
3213-432: The verse play The Last Days of Lincoln (1959). A notable student, later a colleague, was Lionel Trilling . David Lehman writes that "Though the differences between them were many – Trilling struck some as patrician in demeanor where Van Doren seemed ever the populist – the two great professors inspired a rare filial devotion in generations of Columbia students. It was inevitably either Mark Van Doren or Lionel Trilling who
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#17327733230233276-766: The winner of the rigged game show Twenty-One . In the film Quiz Show (1994), Mark Van Doren was played by Paul Scofield , who earned an Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance. Their second son was John Van Doren who also lived in Cornwall, Connecticut , at the farmstead where their father did most of his writing between academic years, and where he moved after retirement. Mark Van Doren died on December 10, 1972, in Torrington, Connecticut , aged 78, two days after undergoing surgery for circulatory problems at
3339-554: Was literary editor of The Nation , in New York City (1924–1928), and its film critic, 1935 to 1938. Amongst his notable works, many published in The Kenyon Review , are a collaboration with brother Carl Van Doren , American and British Literature since 1890 (1939); critical studies, The Poetry of John Dryden (1920), Shakespeare (1939), The Noble Voice (1945) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1949); collections of poems including Jonathan Gentry (1931); stories; and
3402-586: Was a child prodigy violinist and went on to become a prominent avant-garde violinist and conductor. During World War II, Zukofsky edited technical manuals at a number of electronics companies working in support of the war effort. In 1947, he took a job as an instructor in the English Department of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn , where he would remain until his retirement at the rank of associate professor in 1965. He subsequently
3465-490: Was a decisive encounter for Kerouac; he got an A in Van Doren's Shakespeare course, and decided in consequence to quit the Columbia football team and take up literature instead." "I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds." – Mark Van Doren ( Newsweek , 1959) He twice served on
3528-587: Was a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut . Throughout most of the 1940s and 1950s, the Zukofskys lived in Brooklyn Heights , then from 1964 to 1973 in Manhattan , and finally they retired to the Suffolk County outer suburb of Port Jefferson, New York , where he completed his magnum opus "A" and his last major work, the highly compressed poetic sequence 80 Flowers . Just
3591-459: Was arrested as an accessory to crimes carried out by Herbert Huncke and others, and was an important influence on Merton, both in Merton's conversion to Catholicism and Merton's poetry. He was a strong advocate of liberal education , and wrote the book, Liberal Education (1943), which helped promote the influential " great books " movement. Starting in 1941, he also did Invitation to Learning ,
3654-549: Was born in New York City's Lower East Side to Yiddish speaking immigrants from Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. His father Pinchos (ca. 1860–1950) immigrated to the United States in 1898, and was followed in 1903 by his wife, Chana (1862–1927), and their three children. Pinchos worked as a pants-presser and night watchman for many decades in New York's garment district. The only one of his siblings born in
3717-477: Was ghost written for his friend René Taupin , presenting three approaches to the body of Apollinaire 's work in large part through the presentation and arrangement of quotations. Throughout much of the 1930s Zukofsky worked on a poetry textbook, A Test of Poetry , after the manner of Pound's ABC of Reading , primarily juxtaposing sample poems or excerpts with little commentary and asking to student to draw their own conclusions. Although initially this text only saw
3780-537: Was grounded in the proposition that an intelligent person of good faith needed no special qualifications to read Othello , The Iliad , or The Divine Comedy . You just needed to be attentive and use your intelligence. And because he treated the students with respect and without condescension, he brought out the best in them." He writes of his of his notable students, who "ranged from ecstatic Zen Beat masters ( Allen Ginsberg , Jack Kerouac ) to verse sophisticates ( Louis Simpson , John Hollander , Richard Howard ). It
3843-470: Was raised on his family's farm in eastern Illinois, before his father decided to move to the neighboring town of Urbana , to be closer to good schools. He was the younger brother of the academic and biographer Carl Van Doren , starting with whom all five brothers attended the local elementary school and high school. Mark Van Doren eventually studied at the University of Illinois in Urbana, where he earned
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#17327733230233906-498: Was the favorite professor of students with a literary vocation, and in time Columbia would name its highest teaching accolade after Van Doren and its major award for scholarship after Trilling." He won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Collected Poems 1922–1938 . Van Doren was born in Hope, Illinois , the fourth of five sons of the county's doctor, Charles Lucius Van Doren, of remote Dutch ancestry , and wife Eudora Ann Butz. He
3969-418: Was the long poem, "Poem beginning 'The,'" composed in 1926 and published by Ezra Pound in his journal The Exile in 1928. Demonstrating a precocious assimilation of modernist styles, this is an autobiographical portrait of the young poet. The poem satirizes the older modernists for their pessimism, particularly T.S. Eliot 's The Waste Land , examines his cultural identity and the question of assimilation as
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