In 195 1, she continues to run around in her life. On the trip to South America, she fell ill and was left in Brazil by a cargo ship. Since then, she has made this country her home in 18. Her homosexual relationship with Lotta Demarcay do Suarez has brought her a stable life and love. She built houses in Rio de Janeiro near Petropolis, and later in Ouro Prêto. 1955, her second collection of poems, Cold Spring, was published. Ten years later, in the collection of poems "The Problem of Travel", Brazil became the creative background of many poems.
After Solez committed suicide, Bishop returned to the United States for more and more time, and 1969 became a resident poet of Harvard University. 197 1 year, she formed a close friendship with Alice Mesfaher, which lasted until Bishop died in 1979. Her last book of poetry, Geography III, was published in 1976.
Bishop often spends years writing a poem, striving for its natural style. With the passion of "grasping the accuracy of language", she created her own multinational world: Canada, America, Europe and Brazil. Self-pity is avoided in the poem, and alienation is faintly hidden. As a woman, a homosexual, an orphan, a rootless traveler, an asthma patient who is often hospitalized, a depressed patient and an alcoholic. "Essentially, I'm not interested in big things," she once told Lowell. "Some things don't have to be big enough to show how good they are."
Its manuscripts are kept in Houghton Library of Harvard University, Rosenbach Museum and Library of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Vasa College Library and Washington University Library.
Excerpt from The Oxford Guide-American Women Writers, all rights reserved by Oxford University Press, Anne Agnes colville.
Poet Elizabeth Bishop (19 1 1 Feb. 8-1979 10/Oct. 6) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is the boss of J.W. Bishop's contracting company. Bishop tasted abandonment in his childhood, and this emotion is everywhere in his poems. Her father died of Barrett's disease (nephropathy) when he was eight months old, and her mother was insane and kept going in and out of a mental hospital for the next five years. After William's death, Gertrude immediately lost her American citizenship and returned to her parents' home in Nova Scotia (southeast Canada). After a complete mental breakdown, she was sent to a public nursing home in Dartmouth. Elizabeth Bishop was five years old, and he later described it in detail in the article In the Village. Her mother was diagnosed with permanent mental disorder and never saw Elizabeth again.
After his mother was hospitalized, Bishop lived with his parents in a big village in Nova Scotia and lived a friendly and comfortable life. But this quiet life was quickly disrupted, and his grandparents decided to take their children to Worcester to raise them. Bishop wrote in her memoir Country Mouse: "Nobody asked my advice. They brought me back to the place where my father was born against my will and' saved' me from poverty and localism. " There, in the lonely rich class, Bishop keenly felt the lack of affection. She wrote: "I feel that I am getting old and dying. I feel lonely and tired of my grandmother, my silent grandfather and my lonely dinner ... I lie down at night, turn on the switch and turn off the flashlight, and then cry. "
1918 In May, when her mother's sister Maud Bulmer Shepherdson rescued Bishop, even her grandparents witnessed the failure of the experiment. Bishop was not born a strong child, and he was already ill. Eczema, asthma, chorea and tension made her so weak that she could hardly walk. Maud lives in a rented apartment in South Boston. In an unpublished manuscript, Mrs Sullivan Downstairs, Bishop tells about his love for his neighbors. She later recalled that she started writing poems there because she was influenced by Aunt Maud's love for literature.
When she was a little stronger, Bishop spent the summer in Nova Scotia and attended Chequerset Camp on Cape Cod. Her unusual situation and weak body prevented her from entering school normally before 14 years old, but she was an excellent student. Bishop finished walnut hill girls' school and entered Vasa College 1934 class.
In Vasa College, Bishop, novelist Mary Therese McCarthy and others founded the underground literary magazine Spirit, which published more social consciousness and avant-garde articles than the legal Vasa Review. 1934 is the year when her mother died and she graduated from Vasa. This spring, she met the poet marianne moore and became friends with her. Influenced by Moore, Bishop realized that poetry could become a practical career for women. Moore recommended Bishop for the Horton Mifflin Prize. Her manuscript "North and South" stood out from more than 800 contestants and was published in August 1946.
North and South expresses the core themes of Bishop's poems: geographical scenery, the relationship between man and nature, questioning knowledge and ideas, and controlling the formal ability and impossibility of disorder. Before robert lowell commented on North and South, he met Bishop at a dinner party, which marked the beginning of a key or complicated friendship. Like Moore, Lowell provided Bishop with possibilities-in the form of practical prizes, academic prizes and prizes, as well as artistic forms. 1950, Lowell helped Bishop get a position as a poetry consultant in the Library of Congress while she was writing her second book.
1950 Bishop was awarded the lucy martin donnelly Scholarship of Brynmore College and the Medal of American Academy of Arts and Literature. 195 1 year, she traveled to south America and wanted to see the Amazon river. However, just before she set off for her dream voyage, Bishop ate a cashew nut, which made her seriously allergic and bedridden. After Bishop recovered, she fell in love with her friend and nurse Lota de Demarcay do Soares, and also with the scenery and culture of Brazil. Bishop and Sorez lived together in Indianapolis, Petro and the mountain city of Rio de Janeiro for 65,438+05 years. This new love and home brought happiness to the Bishop, which she had only briefly experienced in the big village before. She wrote to Lowell and said, "For the first time in my life, I feel extremely happy." (1July 28, 953)
1In April, 954, Bishop and Horton Mifflin reached an agreement to publish her second book, Cold Spring, which included her poems in the first book, entitled: North and South-Cold Spring. This collection of poems won the Pulitzer Prize of 1956. The collection of poems was released on August 1 day, 1955, and received rave reviews. Donald Hall called Bishop "one of the best poets in the world".
After the publication of Cold Spring, Bishop translated a Brazilian work, The Diary of Helena Jasmine (Miss Alice Brett)-Minavida de Menina in the next three years. Helena's life in Diamartinet Town in 1893 awakened the memory of Bishop's life in 19 16. Writing childhood memoirs while translating helps Bishop explore the past as an artistic element. This translation was published in 1957 by Peleg, Strauss and Kudaxi Publishing House, and it was titled "Diary of Helena Jasmine".
Bishop's third collection of poems, The Question of Travel (1965), reflects her childhood experiences and also contains poems about her new home in Brazil. This book is divided into two parts: Brazil and other places, and there is an essay "Collision in the Village" between them. Bishop returned to the theme of geography, form and scenery, but between tourists and scenery, between readers and poets, she expressed more intimacy. The travel problem has been positively evaluated. Robert Mazzocco praised Bishop as "one of the shining contemporary core talents" in the New York Book Review (1967 10). This book is full of descriptive colors, which is why Bishop has won so many favorable comments. However, there is no doubt that this book is also full of a feeling, which Wyatt Pratt called "skew", and it feels like it slips into mystery, terror or ecstasy at the moment when it can't successfully express reality.
In the mid-1960s, Bishop's life in Brazil was in trouble. At the age of 20, Ruiz participated in the politics of Rio, and the park project she was in charge occupied her time and attention. With the deterioration of the political situation, Bishop felt more and more uncomfortable at home in Brazil. 1966 Bishop spent two semesters as a resident poet at the University of Washington, and then returned to Rio, hoping to rebuild his life there. Bishop and Sorez both suffered physical and psychological pain, and both of them were hospitalized. After Bishop recovered a little, she left Brazil and returned to new york, expecting Sores to come as soon as he recovered. Sorez arrived in new york on the afternoon of1September, 967 19, and died of overdose of sedatives that night at the age of 57.
Sorez's departure is a huge blow to Bishop personally, although she still insists on writing and publishing. 1969 Bishop published The Complete Poems, which included all her previous poems and several new works. This collection of poems won the 1970 National Book Award. At the award ceremony, Bishop once again tried to rebuild life in Brazil. However, without Sorez's help, she could not negotiate concessions between politics and culture, and Bishop finally became convinced that his life in Brazil was impossible. 1In the autumn of 970, he returned to the United States and taught at Harvard, where she met Alice Mesfaher, a woman who gave her strength and love for the rest of her life.
Bishop finally signed a four-year contract with Harvard. Although she has never fully liked her teacher status, her students think she has learned a lot from her precise words and calm conversation. 1976, Bishop, as the first American and the first woman, won the neustadt International Literature Award for Overseas Books. In the same year, she also published her last book of poetry, Geography III, and 1977 won the book award. Nine beautifully written poems return to the north-south theme, but they are more cordial and straightforward. Alfred Cowen read Geography III comprehensively and profoundly, and he praised in Georgia Review of 1977:
1 977 65438+1October1Bishop applied for the Guggenheim Scholarship, and she said that she would publish a new collection of poems, tentatively named Grandma's Glass Eye, and a book-long poem Elegy. When she died in Boston, Massachusetts, she had finished four new collections of poems: Bishop's poems were included in The Complete Poems (1927- 1979) and published by Peleg, Strauss and Gill (1983).
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Elizabeth Bishop's manuscripts are specially collected by Houghton Library of Harvard University and Vasa College Library. Brett C. muriel's biography Elizabeth Bishop: Life and Memories (1993) provides valuable reference value, and Candice W. McMahon's document Elizabeth Bishop: Literature (1927-1979). Other important comments on Bishop's works include: Bonnie Costello's Elizabeth Bishop: The Problem of Mastery (199 1), david cal Si Tong's As a Poet (1989), and Judith Merlin's Humble Authorization: marianne moore. The Poems of Elizabeth Bishop by Robert Dale Parker (1988) and Elizabeth Bishop: Her Artistic Development by Thomas Travisano (1988). Her prose was included in the Prose Collection (1984), with Robert Gill as the order. Gill also edited and published Bishop's Letters and his masterpiece An Art: Letters (1994). The obituary was published in The New York Times (1979 10.08).