SCHWARTZ, DELMORE

SCHWARTZ, DELMORE (1913–1966), U.S. poet, author, and critic. Born in Brooklyn, Schwartz was a member during the 1930s and 1940s of the literary-political group centered in the magazines Partisan Review (of which he was editor, 1943–55) and Commentary. In 1938 he won fame overnight with his first book, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. This combined 35 lyric poems of "experiment and imitation" with other writings, including the short story which gave the book its title. His other works include two volumes of short stories, The World is a Wedding (1948) and Successful Love and Other Stories (1961); a verse-play, Shenandoah (1941); and a collection of lyrics, Vaudeville for a Princess (1950). Existence for Schwartz was fraught with terror, frustration, agony, and disappointment, and to him the Jew symbolized alienation. His deep vein of pessimism was expressed by a character in The World is a Wedding, who says, "You can't fool me, the world is a funeral." Schwartz found his most profound drama in the East European Jewish dream of America as the land of golden streets, freedom, and boundless opportunity. In his long, ambitious prose poem, Genesis (1943), which discussed the American Jew's self-preservation, as well as in various short stories, Schwartz described with biblical grandeur the immigrant's dream of the New World, his early struggles, his successes and failures, his marriages and children, the conflict between parents and children, the pressures of World War I, the ensuing boom, and the depression of the 1930s. During the years 1940–47, Schwartz taught at Harvard and Princeton universities. Schwartz appears as the eponymous protagonist of Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift (1975). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Atlas, Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet (1977); R. Phillips (ed.), Letters of Delmore Schwartz: Selected and Edited (1984); E. Pollet (ed.), Portrait of Delmore: Journals and Notes of Delmore Schwartz, 1939–1959 (1986). (Maurice Zolotow)