Robert Hillyer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Hillyer
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Robert Silliman Hillyer June 3, 1895 East Orange, New Jersey, US |
| Died | December 24, 1961 (aged 66) Wilmington, Delaware, US |
| Occupation | poet, writer, university faculty |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) |
| Literary movement | Harvard Aesthetes |
| Notable works | The Collected Verse of Robert Hillyer A Letter to Robert Frost and Others |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, 1934 |
Robert Silliman Hillyer (born June 3, 1895, died December 24, 1961) was an American poet and a teacher of English at universities. He won a special award called the Pulitzer Prize for his poetry in 1934.
Contents
Robert Hillyer's Early Life
Robert Hillyer was born in East Orange, New Jersey. His family was from Connecticut. He went to Kent School and then to Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard with honors in 1917. While at Harvard, he was the editor of a student magazine called The Harvard Advocate. He was also part of a group known as the Harvard Aesthetes.
When World War I started, Hillyer went to France. He volunteered to drive ambulances for the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps. His Harvard classmate, John Dos Passos, also joined him. When the United States entered the war, Hillyer joined the American forces. After being an ambulance driver, he worked for the US Ordnance Department in France. After the war ended, Hillyer worked as a messenger for the peace conference in Paris in 1919. For a while, he shared a place in Paris with John Dos Passos. They even worked on a novel together, but it was never published.
Robert Hillyer's Career
Teaching at Universities
In 1919, Hillyer became a professor of English at Harvard University. Later, in the late 1920s, he taught at Trinity College. He became a member of a literary group called St. Anthony Hall in 1927.
From 1937 to 1944, he held an important teaching position at Harvard called the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory. He was also a visiting professor at Kenyon College from 1948 to 1951. From 1952 until he passed away, Hillyer taught at the University of Delaware. While there, he gave many poetry readings. These readings were recorded and can still be listened to today.
During his time as a teacher, Hillyer taught many students who later became famous writers and poets. Some of these include Theodore Roethke, James Gould Cozzens, Howard Nemerov, James Agee, Norman Mailer, Robert Fitzgerald, and John Simon.
Becoming a Poet
In 1919, Robert Hillyer described himself as a "conservative and religious poet." This meant he liked traditional ways of writing poetry. In 1934, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book The Collected Verse of Robert Hillyer. His poems often followed a rhythm and used rhymes. He wrote about topics like death, love, and nature. He was known for his sonnets (a type of 14-line poem) and for poems like "Theme and Variations," which was about his war experiences. He also wrote a lighter poem called "Letter to Robert Frost."
He became the president of the Conservative Poetry Society of America. In this role, he often spoke out against newer, more experimental poets like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.
Awards and Honors
- He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book "Collected Verse" in 1934.
- He was given the important Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University in 1937.
- His writings and papers are kept at Syracuse University.
Robert Hillyer's Works
Poetry Books
- Pre-Pulitzer Poetry (Ebook, Personville Press, 2023). This book includes six poetry books Hillyer published before winning the Pulitzer Prize.
- The Collected Poems (Alfred Knopf, 1961)
- The Relic & Other Poems (Knopf, 1957).
- The Suburb by the Sea: New Poems (Knopf, 1952)
- The Death of Captain Nemo: A Narrative Poem (A.A. Knopf, 1949)
- Poems for Music, 1917–1947. (1947)
- Pattern of a Day (1940)
- In a Time of Mistrust (1939)
- A Letter to Robert Frost and Others (1937).
- The Collected Verse of Robert Hillyer. (A. A. Knoft, 1933)
- The Gates of the Compass: A Poem in Four Parts Together with Twenty-Two Shorter Pieces (Viking Press, 1930)
- The Seventh Hill (Viking Press, 1928)
- The Halt in the Garden (Elkin Matthews,1925)
- The Coming Forth by Day: An Anthology of Poems from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (B.J. Brimmer Company, 1923)
- Hills Give Promise, a Volume of Lyrics, Together with Carmus: A Symphonic Poem (B.J. Brimmer Company, 1923)
- Alchemy: A Symphonic Poem (Brentano's, 1920)
- The Five Books of Youth (Brentano's, 1920)
- Sonnets and Other Lyrics (Harvard University Press, 1917)
- Eight Harvard Poets (1917), which included works by E. E. Cummings and John Dos Passos.
Novels
- Riverhead (Alfred Knopf, 1932)
- My Heart for Hostage (Random House, 1942). This novel was made available for free online in 2022.
Editor and Translator
- Kahlil Gibran. A Tear and a Smile. Robert Hillyer wrote the introduction. (A. A. Knopf, 1959).
- Eight More Harvard Poets. Edited by Samuel Foster Damon and Robert Hillyer. (Brentano, 1923)
- Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne and The Complete Poetry of William Blake, Robert Hillyer wrote the introduction. Random House: New York, 1941.
Personal Life
In 1926, Robert Hillyer married Dorothy Hancock Tilton. They had one son. They later divorced in 1943.
He was 66 years old when he passed away in Wilmington, Delaware.
See also
- List of ambulance drivers during World War I
