Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) was an influential poetry critic. This book examines his work, situating him among peers. It examines the social context of his aesthetic choices, examining events ranging from teen culture to the Cuban missile crisis.

Introduction Antechapter: Randall Jarrell's Life 1: Jarrell's Interpersonal Style 2: Institutions, Professions, Criticism 3: Psychology and Psychoanalysis 4: Time and Memory 5: Childhood and Youth 6: Men, Women, Children, and Families Conclusion: "What We See and Feel and Are" Index

A required source for anyone doing research on the life and work of this noteworthy American poet and critic. Library Journal Burt is one of the leading poet-critics of his own emerging generation, turning out an astonishing amount of terrific review-based criticism... His project here is nothing less than the full-scale rehabilitation of Jarrell. Publishers Weekly, starred review Stephen Burt does Randall Jarrell the finest kind of critical justice... There is sympathy here, and imagination, and just the right degree of intellectual detachment. -- Louis Menand Jarrell brooded endlessly on the crucial question of how to engage with life, but ultimately the capacity seemed to elude him. Burt traces, rather wonderfully, his obsession with youth, age and aging. Los Angeles Times Book Review The achievement of Stephen Burt's excellent book Randall Jarrell and His Age, is to show the true subtlty, strangeness, and deep feeling opened up by these apparently unpromising explorations of self and others in the bare style that was Jarrell's trademark. Poetry Review Burt helps us to dig out the shards that constitute Jarrell's poems and to make them speak of, and speak to, selves and others, in his age and ours. PN Review In his splendid book Randall Jarrell and His Age Stephen Burt finally answers the question 'Who was Randall Jarrell?' by setting his poems within several layers of aesthetic, social, and psychological contexts to not only illuminate the oeuvre but to better understand the complexity of Jarrell's own intellectual interventions in the cultural climate of America from the late 1930s through his death in 1965. -- Jacques Khalip Boston Review A book that pays Jarrell the tribute of placing his poetics front and center, dispensing with most of the trappings of biography and mythology. Poetry Randall Jarrell and His Age is a sophisticated and scholarly treatment of an artist and his metier that will be best appreciated by serious and broadly read specialists. -- Chuck Berg Magill's Literary Annual A study impressive for the intensity, detail, and subtlety of its readings...it is likely to be the definitive study of Jarrell for years to come -- Edward Brunner Contemporary Literature

This book examines all of Jarrell's work, incorporating new research such as previously undiscovered essays and poems. Burt considers both his aesthetic choices and their social contexts, exploring the ways in which Jarrell's efforts and achievements encompassed the concerns of his time, from teen culture to the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also situates the poet-critic among his peers, including Bishop and Arendt.