Delmore Schwartz
Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 – July 11, 1966) was an American poet and short story writer.
Delmore Schwartz
December 8, 1913
New York City, U.S.
July 11, 1966 (aged 52)
New York City, U.S.
Poet
Poetry, fiction
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, Summer Knowledge: New and Selected Poems
Early life[edit]
Schwartz was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, where he also grew up. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. He had a younger brother, Kenneth.[1] In 1930, Schwartz's father suddenly died at the age of 49. Though Harry had accumulated a good deal of wealth from his dealings in the real estate business, Delmore inherited only a small amount of that money as the result of the shady dealings of the executor of Harry's estate. According to Schwartz's biographer, James Atlas, "Delmore continued to hope that he would eventually receive his legacy [even] as late as 1946."[2]
Schwartz spent time at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin before graduating with a B.A. from New York University in 1935. He then did some graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University, where he studied with the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, left and returned to New York without receiving a degree. [2] He also had expressed feeling rejected by the English department at Harvard on account of his Jewish identity.[3]
In 1937, he married Gertrude Buckman, a book reviewer for Partisan Review, whom he divorced after six years.
Death[edit]
Schwartz was unable to repeat or build on his early successes later in life as a result of alcoholism and mental illness, and his last years were spent in seclusion at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. In fact, Schwartz was so isolated from the rest of the world that when he died in his hotel room on July 11, 1966, at age 52, of a heart attack, two days passed before his body was identified at the morgue.[2][9]
Schwartz was interred at Cedar Park Cemetery, in Emerson, New Jersey.[10]