Delmore Schwartz

Delmore Schwartz – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Explore the compelling life and work of Delmore Schwartz — American poet, short-story writer, and literary critic. Delve into his biography, major works, influence, and some of his most memorable lines.

Introduction

Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 – July 11, 1966) was a towering but tragic figure in 20th-century American letters. A poet, short-story writer, and critic, he gained early acclaim for the audacity and intellectual depth of his writing. His work often wrestled with identity, memory, alienation, and time. Yet his life was marked by personal struggles — episodes of mental illness, substance abuse, and disillusionment — that ultimately hindered his later achievement. Today he is remembered not just for what he wrote, but also for the promise he carried and the flame that flickered too soon.

Early Life and Family

Delmore Schwartz was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 8, 1913, to Romanian Jewish immigrant parents.
His parents, Harry and Rose Schwartz, had a turbulent marriage. When Delmore was nine, they separated.
He also had a younger brother, Kenneth.
The death of his father in 1930, when Delmore was about 17, worsened financial and emotional instability in the family.

The early rupture in his home deeply influenced his writing. Themes of familial conflict, memory, guilt, and disappointment recur throughout his fiction and poetry.

Youth and Education

From adolescence, Delmore showed a precocious literary bent. He attended George Washington High School, where he engaged in writing and developed a serious commitment to literature.

He pursued higher education at several institutions:

• University of Wisconsin (attended)

• Columbia University (some attendance)

• New York University: where he earned his B.A. in philosophy in 1935.

• Harvard University: graduate work in philosophy; he studied under Alfred North Whitehead, among others.

Though he did not complete a doctoral degree, his intellectual engagement with philosophy, psychology, literature, and criticism would deeply shape his literary voice.

Career and Achievements

Early Success: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

When he was about 25 (in 1937), Schwartz published a book titled In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, containing a mixture of poetry and fiction, including a short story of the same name.
The title story, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” has become one of his most anthologized works.
It was first published in Partisan Review and later included in his collection.
The story is often read as a dream-vision of familial conflict, regret, and the weight of inherited responsibility.
It earned immediate attention from literary circles, including praise from T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams.

Later Writings, orial Work & Teaching

Over subsequent decades, Schwartz published:

• Shenandoah and Other Verse Plays (1941)

• Genesis: Book One (1943), a long poem reflecting existential and autobiographical themes

• The World Is a Wedding (1948), a collection of short stories

• Vaudeville for a Princess and Other Poems (1950)

• Summer Knowledge: New and Selected Poems (1959), which was later awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1959.

• Successful Love and Other Stories (1961)

In addition to his creative writing, Schwartz held editorial and critical roles:

• He edited for Partisan Review (1943–1955)

• He also worked with The New Republic during the mid-1950s.

Schwartz also taught creative writing or literature at several institutions, including Harvard, Kenyon College, Princeton, Bennington, Syracuse, and others.

Recognition, Decline & Final Years

In 1959, Schwartz became one of the youngest recipients of the Bollingen Prize for his volume Summer Knowledge.

Yet despite this achievement, his later years were fraught with difficulty. He struggled with mental illness, alcoholism, paranoia, and diminishing productivity.
He was increasingly marginalized, sometimes living in impoverished conditions, and spent his final days at the Chelsea Hotel in New York.

On July 11, 1966, Schwartz died of a heart attack in his hotel room. His body remained unidentified in the morgue for two days.

His decline has often been seen as a cautionary tale of brilliance undone by inner demons and external pressures.

Historical Milestones & Context

• Schwartz emerged in a period when American modernism, existential thought, psychoanalysis, and Jewish American identity were intersecting currents in literature.

• He was often placed among the “middle generation” of American poets — a bridge between earlier modernists like Eliot and Pound and later confessional poets such as Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Randall Jarrell.

• His early acclaim, as a young writer praised by major figures, set high expectations — expectations he struggled to fulfill in later life.

• The shift in American poetry over the mid-20th century — from formalism and impersonal models toward more personal, psychological, and confessional writing — was a terrain Schwartz both inhabited and anticipated.

• His emotional instability and tragic arcs also resonate with broader cultural explorations in the 20th century of alienation, mental illness, and the burdens of artistic identity.

Legacy and Influence

The legacy of Delmore Schwartz is complex, layered with both admiration and tragedy. Some of his enduring impacts:

1. Inspiration to younger writers
   Many poets and novelists saw Schwartz as a mentor or model. Saul Bellow based the character of Von Humboldt Fleischer in Humboldt’s Gift (1975) on him.
   Lou Reed (of The Velvet Underground) also paid tribute to him in song, and listed him among literary influences.

2. Stylistic and thematic contribution
   Schwartz’s blend of lyricism, psychological depth, and formal daring has influenced poets who straddle the boundary between intellect and emotion.
   His work challenged the notion of impersonal poetry, insisting that the self and interior life be central subjects.

3. Posthumous revival and scholarship
   After his death, intervals of neglect gave way to renewed interest. Scholars have collected his letters, published posthumous editions, and reassessed his place in literary history.
   For example, Letters of Delmore Schwartz and Last & Lost Poems have kept parts of his voice alive.

4. Symbol of the tragic artist
   Schwartz often figures in discussions about the relationship between genius and suffering, creative promise and self-destruction. His life is sometimes invoked as a caution: that brilliance alone is not sufficient to sustain a lasting career.

Though he died young and struggled in his later years, Delmore Schwartz’s name endures among those who push at the possibilities of poetry, self, and memory.

Personality and Talents

Delmore Schwartz’s personality is glimpsed through his writing, correspondence, and testimonies of peers. Some salient traits:

• Intense, self-aware, and internally conflicted
  His work often wrests with conscience, guilt, the burden of past, and the demands of identity.

• Erudite and philosophical
  His studies in philosophy and exposure to psychoanalytic and modernist traditions gave his poetry intellectual weight and allusiveness.

• Debilitating self-expectation
  Schwartz’s early successes instilled ideals he often felt unable to meet, contributing to bouts of doubt and despair.

• Socially charismatic, yet isolated
  He could be a vibrant presence in literary circles, engaging conversation, mentorship, and debate. Yet he also became increasingly alienated and withdrawn.

• Vulnerable to addiction and mental distress
  Substance use (alcohol, barbiturates) and mental illness increasingly impaired his capacity to write and relate.

His gifts and frailties are inseparable in the narrative of his life.

Famous Quotes of Delmore Schwartz

Below are some notable, often-cited lines by Schwartz:

“Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.”
“I am a book I neither wrote nor read.”
“Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable and noble kind of love.”
“Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you.”
“Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire.”
“What was the freedom to which the adult human being rose in the morning, if each act was held back or inspired by the overpowering ghost of a little child?”

These lines offer windows into his preoccupations: time, selfhood, love, courage, alienation, and the haunting presence of inner life.

Lessons from Delmore Schwartz

From the arc of Schwartz’s life and work, readers and aspiring writers may glean several lessons:

1. Early success is not destiny
   Talent and acclaim may open doors, but sustaining a creative life demands resilience, balance, and self-care.

2. The self is never fully known
   Schwartz’s work reminds us that memory, identity, and ambition are intertwined and often contradictory.

3. Art and suffering often intersect—but suffering doesn’t guarantee greatness
   His life demonstrates both the cost and the insufficiency of suffering alone to produce enduring art.

4. Community, mentorship, and connection matter
   Though he sometimes withdrew, his friendships, editorial work, and teaching relationships infused his life and extended his influence.

5. The posthumous can restore voice
   Even when a writer’s trajectory falters, scholarship, republishing, and new readers can revive and reassess their work.

Conclusion

Delmore Schwartz brought intensity, intellectual ambition, emotional piercing, and lyrical daring into American literature. His life was as volatile and fraught as his best poems, yet that very tension testifies to a restless spirit striving for art, meaning, and self-understanding. Though he died young and burdened, his work continues to speak to those who grapple with time, identity, love, and the weight of responsibilities borne in dreams.