Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991                   TAG: 9102200011
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by O. ALAN WELTZIEN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE LITERARY WORLD OF A MAJOR POET

Robert Frost biographer William H. Pritchard chose the subtitle for this book aptly, for his story of poet Randall Jarrell refracts his life through the poetry and criticism he wrote.

Pritchard writes elegantly and sympathetically about this major poet of a generation or more ago. Though his audience may not be wide, those interested in midcentury American poetry will want to take a look at this book.

Compared to such friends as Robert Lowell, Jarrell led a sober and orderly, even old-fashioned and quiet life, at least until his final two years.

Jarrell proved a precocious and arrogant student at Vanderbilt under mentors John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate. As he increasingly discovered his own poetic voice during and following World War II, his allegiance shifted from Auden to Frost. In the 1950s and early '60s, Jarrell's art increasingly investigated a delicately balanced irony and nostalgia.

Jarrell spent most of the years between 1947 and 1965 happily teaching at what was formerly called The Women's College of UNC-Greensboro; he called it "Sleeping Beauty." Pritchard portrays a dedicated but unconventional teacher, and certainly the same qualities describe his literary criticism. Early on, Jarrell became famous for the sharply satirical dismissal contained in his reviews. But as he approached 50, this writer of children's books and lover of tennis, cats and sports cars started falling apart. A suicide attempt in April, 1965 foreshadows his famous, possibly suicidal death half a year later. An uncharacteristic closing to a career marked by grace and poise.