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Guy Mattison Davenport ( November 23 1927 – January 4 2005 ) was an American Writer , Translator , Painter , Illustrator , Intellectual , and Teacher . LIFE AND WORK (ONE VERSION) Guy Davenport was born in Anderson, South Carolina in the Foothills of Appalachia on November 23 , 1927 . His Father was an Agent for the Railway Express Agency . Davenport said that he became a serious reader at age ten, with a neighbor’s gift of one of the Tarzan series. He left high school early and enrolled at Duke University at age seventeen. At Duke, he studied Classics , English Literature , and Art . He was a ( 756th Field Artillery , then 18th Airborne Corps ), then in Korea . Leaving the army, he taught until 1955 at Washington University In St. Louis , then began his Ph.D. at Harvard University , where he studied with Harry Levin and Archibald MacLeish . He befriended Ezra Pound during the poet’s incarceration in St. Elizabeth's Hospital , visiting him annually from 1952 until his release in 1958, and at his home in Rapallo ( Italy ) in 1963 (a visit that became Davenport’s story, “Ithaka”). Davenport wrote his Dissertation on Pound’s poetry (published as ''Cities on Hills'' in 1983 ). During his years in Cambridge , he was briefly married. After completing his Ph.D. , he taught at Haverford College from 1961 to 1963 but soon took a position at the University Of Kentucky , “the remotest offer with the most pay” (as he wrote to Jonathan Williams ), where he taught until his retirement at the end of 1990 . Davenport began publishing experiments, especially in the use of Collage ; and the depicting of a Fourier ist Utopia , where small groups of men, women, & children have eliminated the separation between mind and body. Before publishing Fiction , Davenport was a regular reviewer for ''National Review'' and ''The Hudson Review''. His Essays ranged from literary to social topics, from small book reviews to lectures such as the title essay for his first collection, ''The Geography of the Imagination ''. Davenport was especially passionate about the destruction of the American metropolis by the automobile. His other collections of Notebook'' and ''Objects on a Table''. Davenport wrote a handful of poems; the longest are “The Resurrection at Cookham Churchyard” (borrowing the title from a painting by Stanley Spencer ) and the book-length ''Flowers & Leaves'', an intricate meditation on Art and America . His selected poems is '' Thasos and Ohio ''. Davenport also translated Ancient Greek texts, particularly from the Archaic period (published in small volumes, then collected into ''7 Greeks''), the occasional other piece (a few poems of Rilke 's, some ancient Egyptian texts [with Boris De Rachewiltz ) and, with Benjamin Urrutia , the sayings of Jesus , published as ''The Logia of Yeshua ''. Before Davenport was a writer, he was a visual artist, and he drew or painted every day of his life. His notebooks are filled with drawings, cheek by jowl with his own observations and quotes from others. Many of his earlier stories are combinations of picture and text, especially ''Tatlin!'' and ''Apples and Pears'' (where some of the illustrations are of pages of his notebook). He also supplied illustrations for the books of others, particularly his friend, Hugh Kenner , in ''The Counterfeiters'' and ''The Stoic Comedians''. Davenport was remarkable for the range of his literary and artistic friendships. In addition to Pound, Williams , and Kenner, Davenport knew Louis Zukofsky , Samuel Beckett , Christopher Middleton , Thomas Merton , Wendell Berry , Buckminster Fuller , Eudora Welty , Samuel Delany , Robert Kelly , James Laughlin , Allen Ginsberg , Ralph Eugene Meatyard , Stan Brakhage , and Ronald Johnson . Two sentences he wrote about his friend and neighbour, Meatyard, apply as well to himself: “He was rare among American artists in that he was not obsessed with his own image in the world. He could therefore live in perfect privacy in a rotting Kentucky town.” Davenport bought Oscar Mayer Bologna , fried it, and ate it with Campbell's Soup . He died of Lung Cancer on January 4 2005. LIFE AND WORK (ANOTHER VERSION) Guy Davenport was born in Anderson, South Carolina in the foothills of Appalachia on November 23 , 1927 . His father was an agent for the Railway Express Agency . Davenport became a serious reader at age ten, with a neighbor’s gift of one of the Tarzan series. Davenport left high school at either age 14 or 16, sources differ. From age 16 he studied Classics , English Literature , and Art at Duke University . He was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College Oxford from 1948 to 1950 where, among other subjects, he studied Old English under J.R.R. Tolkien . He wrote Oxford’s first Thesis on James Joyce . He returned to the U.S., serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg ( 756th Field Artillery , ( 18th Airborne Corps ) and in Korea ( 1950 - 1952 ). Upon leaving the army, he taught until 1955 at Washington University In St. Louis , then began his Ph.D. at Harvard University where he studied with Harry Levin and Archibald MacLeish . He befriended Ezra Pound after the poet was incarcerated in St. Elizabeth's Hospital , visiting Pound annually from 1952 till his release in 1958 . Davenport also visited Pound at his home in Rapallo ( Italy ) in 1963 , a visit that became Davenport’s story, “Ithaka”. Davenport wrote his Dissertation on Pound’s poetry (published as ''Cities on Hills'' in 1983 ). During his years in Cambridge, Massachusetts , he was briefly married. After completing his Ph.D., he taught at Haverford College from 1961 to 1963 but relocated from 1963 to a position at the University Of Kentucky , “the remotest offer with the most pay” (as he wrote to Jonathan Williams ), where he taught until his retirement at the end of 1990. Davenport began publishing short stories in 1970 with “The Aeroplanes at Brescia”, which is based on experiments, especially in the use of Collage ; and the depicting of a Fourier ist erotic Utopia , where small groups of men, women, and children have eliminated the separation between mind and body. His story collections include ''Tatlin!'', ''Da Vinci’s Bicycle'', ''Eclogues'', ''Apples and Pears'', ''The Jules Verne Steam Balloon'', ''The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers'', ''A Table of Green Fields'', ''The Cardiff Team'', ''Twelve Stories'', and ''The Death of Picasso'' (which also includes a selection of essays). Many of his short stories are highly acclaimed, but the fact that they often contain significant "forthrightly Homoerotic " content (Bruce Bawer, ''Artforum'', 04.05) has prompted enthusiastic reviews by Andre Furlani , as well as defenses of Davenport's willingness to consider taboo topics by Wyatt Mason in '' Harper's ''. Talking in 2002 with John Jeremiah Sullivan for an interview for '' The Paris Review '', Davenport explained, “When ''Tatlin!'' was accepted for publication, I remember being anxious and frightened, truly frightened, that reviewers would say, ‘This is pretentious.’ What they said is, ‘This is Obscene ’. I’ve gotten over that”. Negative reactions continued well into the 1990s, when ''Tatlin!'' and ''Da Vinci’s Bicycle'' were on the "stop, seize and destroy" list used by Canadian Customs Officers , and even a broadly sympathetic Christopher Cahill review in the '' Boston Review '' began “If Guy Davenport were to publish his fiction, criticism, and drawings on the Internet, he would likely find himself trailed by the FBI.” Before publishing stories, from 1961 to 1973 Davenport was a regular reviewer for '' National Review '', yet in a ''VORT'' interview he once said that he “didn't like their politics.” His essays ranged from literary to social topics, from small book reviews to lectures such as the title essay for his first collection, ''The Geography of the Imagination''. He also wrote for '' The Hudson Review ''. Davenport was especially passionate about the destruction of the American metropolis by the automobile. He claimed never to have driven and, indeed, to have refused a position at Johns Hopkins because it would have necessitated commuting by car. (Source: ''Washington Post'' obit.) His other collections of essays were ''Every Force Evolves a Form'' and ''The Hunter Gracchus and Other Essays''. He also published two slim volumes on art: ''A Balthus Notebook'' and ''Objects on a Table''. Davenport wrote a handful of poems; the longest are “The Resurrection at Cookham Churchyard” (borrowing the title of a painting by Stanley Spencer ) and the book-length ''Flowers & Leaves'', an intricate meditation on art and America. His poems were collected in ''Thasos and Ohio: Poems and Translations 1950-1980'' (1986). Davenport also translated Ancient Greek texts, particularly from the Archaic period, which were collected in his ''7 Greeks'' (1995) with Boris de Rachewiltz, the occasional other piece (a few poems by Rilke , some '' Maxims of the Ancient Egyptians '' texts) and, with Benjamin Urrutia , the sayings of Jesus , in ''The Logia of Yeshua'' (1996). Davenport was also an accomplished painter and illustrator. Many of his earlier stories are combinations of picture and text, especially "Tatlin!" and "Apples and Pears". For his limited editions, he worked with Letterpress designers and printers Andrew Hoyem, Steve Miller, Barry Magid, Peter Koch, Leslie Miller, A. Doyle Moore, and Carol Sturm. Among numerous literary awards, Davenport won a $365,000 MacArthur Fellowship in 1990 , the O. Henry Award for his short stories, and the Leviton-Blumenthal Prize for his poetry. In 1998 Davenport became a fellow of the American Academy Of Arts And Sciences . FICTION
TRANSLATIONS
POETRY
FUGITIVE PIECES Davenport wrote introductions or contributions to many books: 's ''Cabbages & Kings'' and ''Selected Stories'' (which he also edited); and his selection of Louis Agassiz 's scientific writings (''The Intelligence of Louis Agassiz'') (which he also edited). Some of these pieces were included in Davenport's collections of essays. INTRODUCTIONS (ANOTHER VERSION) Davenport wrote protective introductions to the work of many Gay Artists , especially Will McBride (''Coming of Age'') and Paul Cadmus (''The Drawings of Paul Cadmus ''). COMMENTARY (ONE VERSION)
COLLECTIONS OF CRITICISM (ANOTHER VERSION)
PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS
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PUBLISHED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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