Wallace Fowlie

Wallace Fowlie (1908–1998) was an American writer and professor of literature. He was the James B. Duke Professor of French Literature at Duke University from 1964. Known for his translations of the poet Arthur Rimbaud and his critical studies of French poetry and drama, he also wrote about rock-poet Jim Morrison. Perhaps his most enduring legacy, however, is the product of six decades of teaching at universities in the United States, including Yale, Bennington, Holy Cross, U. Colorado-Boulder, and Duke. Devoted to teaching, particularly undergraduate courses in French, Italian, and modernist literature, Fowlie influenced several generations of American college students.

Fowlie received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship in 1947.^[1]

Fowlie corresponded with literary figures such as Henry Miller, René Char, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Alexis Léger (Saint-John Perse), Marianne Moore, and Anaïs Nin.^[2] His translations of Rimbaud were appreciated by a younger generation that included Jim Morrison and Patti Smith.^[3] In 1990, Fowlie consulted with director Oliver Stone on the film The Doors.^[2]

Works

• Age of Surrealism (1950)
• André Gide: His Life and Art (1965)
• Aubade: A Teacher's Notebook (1983) ISBN 0-8223-0566-6
• Characters from Proust: Poems (1983) ISBN 0-8071-1071-X
• Claudel (Studies in Modern European Literature and Thought) (1957)
• Climate of Violence: The French Literary Tradition from Baudelaire to the Present (1967)
• Clowns And Angels: Studies In Modern French Literature (1943)
• The Clown's Grail: A Study of Love in Its Literary Expression (1947)
• De Villon à Péguy (Editions de l'Arbre, Montreal, 1944)
• Dionysus in Paris: A Guide to Contemporary French Theater (1960)
• Ernest Psichari (Ernest Green & Co., New York, Toronto, 1939)
• From Chartered Land (William R Scott, New York, 1938)
• Jean Cocteau: The History of a Poet's Age (1966)
• Journal of Rehearsals: A Memoir (1997) ISBN 0-8223-1945-4
• Intervalles (A. Magne, Paris, 1939, published under pen name Michel Wallace)
• La Pureté dans l'Art (Editions de l'Arbre, Montreal, 1941)
• Lautréamont (Twayne, New York, 1973) ISBN 0-8057-2511-3
• Letters of Henry Miller and Wallace Fowlie (1975)
• Mallarmé (Dennis Dobson, London; University of Chicago, Chicago, 1953)
• Matines et Vers (Paris, 1936; published under pen name Michel Wallace)
• Memory: A Fourth Memoir (1990) ISBN 0-8223-1045-7
• Poem and Symbol: A Brief History of French Symbolism (1990) ISBN 0-271-00696-X
• A Reading of Dante's Inferno (1981) ISBN 0-226-25888-2
• Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters (1966) ISBN 0-226-71973-1. (Revised, 2005, ISBN 0-226-71977-4)
• Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel as Poet (1994) ISBN 0-8223-1442-8
• Rimbaud's Illuminations, A Study in Angelism (1953)
• Rimbaud, the Myth of Childhood (1946)
• Sites: A Third Memoir (1986) ISBN 0-8223-0700-6
• The Spirit of France: Studies in Modern French Literature (Sheed & Ward, London, 1945)
• Stendhal (1969)
• Charles Baudelaire Selected Poems from "Flowers of Evil" (1963) ISBN 0-486-28450-6

External Resources

• Wallace Fowlie obituary, New York Times
• Wallace Fowlie obituary, Duke News
• "Obituary: Professor Wallace Fowlie," The Independent
• "A Catholic Presence: Duke's Wallace Fowlie" by Stephen Martin
• Wallace Fowlie Papers. Rubenstein Library, Duke University.
• Wallace Fowlie on Andre Gide's L'Immoraliste
• "the Ubu of 1960," blog post

Notes

1. ↑ "Wallace Fowlie - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". Gf.org. Retrieved 2011-11-07. 
2. 1 2 "Inventory of the Wallace Fowlie Papers, 1939-1996 and undated". Rubenstein Library, Duke University. Retrieved 2011-11-07. 
3. ↑ Nicholas Johnson (1998-11-05). "Obituary: Professor Wallace Fowlie - Arts & Entertainment". The Independent. Retrieved 2011-11-07.