Helen Vendler |
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| Born | Helen Hennessy
(1933-04-30)April 30, 1933
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| Died | April 23, 2024(2024-04-23) (aged 90)
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| Occupation | Professor |
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| Spouse |
Zeno Vendler
(m. 1960 ; div. 1963 ) |
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| Children | 1 |
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| Awards | Fulbright Scholarship, 1954
James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association (MLA), 1969
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1970
Metcalf Cup & Prize, Boston University, 1975
National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, 1980
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, 1996
Charles Homer Haskins Lecture, American Council of Learned Societies, 2001
Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2004
Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2013
Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2023 |
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| Alma mater | Emmanuel College (AB)
Harvard University (PhD) |
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| Discipline | English |
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| Sub-discipline | Poetics |
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| Institutions | Harvard University
Boston University
Cornell University
Swarthmore College
Smith College |
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| Main interests | Emily Dickinson, George Herbert, John Keats, Seamus Heaney, Wallace Stevens, W. B. Yeats, William Shakespeare |
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Helen Vendler (née Hennessy; April 30, 1933 – April 23, 2024) was an American academic, writer and literary critic. She was a professor of English language and history at Boston University, Cornell, Harvard, and other universities.
Her academic focus was critical analysis of poetry and she studied poets from Shakespeare and George Herbert to modern poets such as Wallace Stevens and Seamus Heaney. Her technique was close reading, which she described as "reading from the point of view of a writer".
Vendler reviewed poetry regularly for periodicals including The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. She was also a regular judge for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize and so was influential in determining writers' reputation and success.