Richard Wilbur Summary

Biography EssayRichard Wilbur has always been recognized as a major literary talent and as an important man of letters-poet, critic, translator, editor-even if he has never quite been ranked as one of... Read more

Richard Wilbur was born in New York City, one of two children of Lawrence L. and Helen Purdy Wilbur. His father was an artist, a portrait painter. When Wilbur was two years old, the family moved to a ... Read more

In the following essay, Richard Wilbur, at the time a young poet, discusses his “working principles” in writing and understanding poetry. Before answering the present questionnaire, I... Read more

In the following essay, Farrell responds to the critical argument that Wilbur is insensitive to modern issues that modern poet’s like T. S. Eliot addressed, posing that if Wilbur “seems ... Read more

In the following essay, the author provides several close readings of poems such as “Juggler,” “The Beautiful Changes,” and “Boy At the Window,” among others,... Read more

This essay suggests that Wilbur's oeuvre “celebrates the power of metaphorical language to divine the human implications” of natural patterns. The publication of Richard Wilbur... Read more

In the following essay, Bawer explicates several of Wilbur's poems and attempts to position the poet's work against the context of Allen Ginsberg's anarchic poetry and the anger o... Read more

The follow essay provides an overview of Wilbur's 1976 work, The Mind-Reader and considers “the strategic failure” of Wilbur's prophetic stance. Wilbur's 1976 vol... Read more

In this essay from a book-length project on religious themes in Wilbur, the author contends that Wilbur is a metaphysical poet Now there is, I conceive, one duality that underlies a great deal of p... Read more

Arguing that Wilbur's career-long preoccupation with locating the relationship between the tangible and intangible leads him to put ekphrasis—the verbal depiction of a visual object ... Read more

The following essay reviews the later work of Richard Wilbur, noting that Wilbur has followed Yvor Winters' dictum, “Write little; do it well.” “Write little; do it well... Read more

In the following essay, the writer discusses how Wilbur's A Bestiary modifies and builds on the original medieval text Wilbur translated. Everything in the world is strange and marvellous to... Read more

In the following essay, the author compares Wilbur's use of nature imagery with that of Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost. When Amherst College presented Frost with his twenty-first honor... Read more

In the following essay, the writer considers Wilbur as a Romantic poet whose work celebrates the possibility of redemption through the sensual experiences of the world around us “Poetry does... Read more

In the following excerpt, Cummins suggests that Wilbur's consistent use of traditional verse forms for his poetry owes to the poet's assertion that “the artist cannot hope to tran... Read more

Critical Essay by M. L. Rosenthal [In] Things of This World Richard Wilbur seems beset by a sort of ennui, the result of a conceptual dependence which bedevils him with an especially treasonous subtl... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Ramsey Richard Wilbur does what he does well and gladly, learns new ways and enjoys them too. The charges against him are mostly compliments. Yes, he has mastered the iambic li... Read more

Critical Essay by Bruce Michelson When it came out in 1976, The Mind-Reader didn't change any minds. As Richard Wilbur's latest collection of poems, the book was reviewed about eighteen... Read more

In the following essay, Wai provides an analysis of Wilbur's poem "A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra." In his book of word games for children Opposites, Richard Wilb... Read more

In the following essay, Woodard defends Wilbur's poetry against detractors who find his work "too happy." Critical commentaries on Wilbur's poetry have come to seem rath... Read more

In the following essay, Harris surveys major themes in Wilbur's poetry and explains how his work in New and Collected Poems forms a cohesive whole. The publication of Richard Wilbur's... Read more

In the following essay, Green analyzes and discusses the images and metaphors in Wilbur's poem "Beasts." Richard Wilbur's "Beasts" depicts in striking imag... Read more

In the following essay, Frontain cites classical and biblical sources and influences of Wilbur's "Advice to a Prophet." In "Advice to a Prophet," the title poem i... Read more