Richard Ellmann

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Richard Ellmann
Richard David Ellmann (March 15, 1918 � May 13, 1987) was an American literary
critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William
Butler Yeats. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for James Joyce
(1959),[1] which is one of the most acclaimed literary biographies of the 20th
century. Its 1982 revised edition was similarly recognised with the award of the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Ellmann was a liberal humanist, and his academic
work focused on the major modernist writers of the twentieth century.

Contents
1 Life
2 Biographies
2.1 Yeats
2.2 Joyce
2.3 Wilde
3 The Richard Ellmann Lectures
3.1 Richard Ellmann Lecturers
4 Bibliography
5 References
6 Sources
7 External links
Life
Ellmann was born at Highland Park, Michigan, the second of three children (all
sons) of James Isaac Ellmann, lawyer, a Jewish Romanian immigrant, and his wife,
Jeanette Barsook, an immigrant from Kiev. He served in the United States Navy and
Office of Strategic Services during World War II.[2] He studied at Yale University,
receiving his B.A. (1939), his M.A. (1941) and his PhD. (1947) for which he won the
John Addison Porter Prize.[3] In 1947 he was awarded a B.Litt degree (an earlier
form of the M.Litt) from the University of Dublin (Trinity College), where he was
resident while researching his biography of Yeats.[4] As a Yale undergraduate
(Jonathan Edwards College), Ellmann was a member of Phi Beta Kappa (scholastic
honor society); Chi Delta Theta (literary honor society); and, with James Jesus
Angleton, the Yale Literary Magazine (Executive Editorial Board). He achieved
"Scholar of the Second Rank" (current equivalent: Magna Cum Laude). The 1939 Yale
Banner (undergraduate yearbook) published an untitled Ellmann account (similar in
concept and style to Oscar Wilde's parables which Ellmann later cited in his 1987
biography Oscar Wilde) of a chagrined Joseph, husband of Mary, and Jesus Christ's
custodial father:

Joseph was no match for the angel and for Mary's flattering tears. He felt a wince
of disappointment at the idea that she had had a vision too, but then she was his
wife, and perhaps the whole family now had the prophetic gift. He would have to try
it out, on the harvest. Meanwhile he would seek to forget his jealousy, despite the
fact that the story sounded a bit fantastic to a reasonable man, which he guessed
he was, and it would be well not to talk about it much outside. It was better to
leave things the way they were. Not much of a wedding night, but one could tell
white lies about that to one's friends.[5]

Ellman later returned to teach at Yale, and there with Charles Feidelson Jr. He
edited the important anthology, The Modern Tradition. He earlier taught at
Northwestern, and at the University of Oxford, before serving as Emory University's
Robert W. Woodruff Professor from 1980 until his death.

He was Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, 1970�1984,

then professor emeritus, a fellow at New College, Oxford, 1970�1987, and an
extraordinary fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, from 1984 until his death.

Ellmann used his knowledge of the Irish milieu to bring together four literary
luminaries in Four Dubliners: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett (1987), a collection
of essays first delivered at the Library of Congress.

His wife, Mary Ellmann (c. 1921 � 1989), whom he married in 1949, was an essayist.
The couple had three children: Stephen (b. 1951), Maud (b. 1954), and Lucy (b.
1956), the first two became academics and the third a novelist and teacher of
writing.

Ellmann died of motor neurone disease in Oxford at the age of 69.

Many of his collected papers, artifacts, and ephemera were acquired by the
University of Tulsa's McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and
University Archives. Other manuscripts are housed in the Northwestern University's
Library special collections department.

Biographies
Yeats
In Yeats: The Man and the Masks, Ellmann drew on conversations with George Yeats
along with thousands of pages of unpublished manuscripts to write a critical
examination of the poet's life.

Joyce
Ellmann is perhaps most well known for his literary biography of James Joyce, a
revealing account of the life of one of the 20th century's most influential
literary figures. Anthony Burgess called James Joyce "the greatest literary
biography of the century."[6] Edna O'Brien, the Irish novelist, remarked that "H.
G. Wells said that Finnegans Wake was an immense riddle, and people find it too
difficult to read. I have yet to meet anyone who has read and digested the whole of
it�except perhaps my friend Richard Ellmann."[7] Ellmann quotes extensively from
Finnegans Wake as epigraphs in his biography of Joyce.

Wilde
Ellman's biography Oscar Wilde won a Pulitzer Prize.[8][9] In it he examined
Wilde's ascent to literary prominence and his public downfall. Posthumously Ellmann
won both a U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award in 1988[10] and the 1989
Pulitzer Prize for Biography.[11] The book was the basis for the 1997 film Wilde,
directed by Brian Gilbert.

It is considered to be the definitive work on the subject.[12] Ray Monk, a

philosopher and biographer, described Ellmann's Oscar Wilde as a "rich, fascinating
biography that succeeds in understanding another person".[13]

The Richard Ellmann Lectures

The Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory University were
established in his honor.[14]

Richard Ellmann Lecturers

1988 Seamus Heaney
1990 Denis Donoghue
1992 Anthony Burgess (resigned; deceased)
1994 Helen Vendler
1996 Henry Louis Gates Jr.
1999 A. S. Byatt
2001 David Lodge
2004 Salman Rushdie
2006 Mario Vargas Llosa
2008 Umberto Eco
2010 Margaret Atwood
2013 Paul Simon
2017 Colm T�ib�n
Bibliography
P literature.svg This literature-related list is incomplete; you can help by
expanding it.
As author

Yeats: The Man And The Masks (1948; revised edition in 1979)
The Identity of Yeats (1954; second edition in 1964)
James Joyce (1959; revised edition in 1982)
Eminent Domain: Yeats among Wilde, Joyce, Pound, Eliot, and Auden (1970)
Literary Biography: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford
on 4 May 1971 (1971)
Ulysses on the Liffey (1972)
Golden Codgers: Biographical Speculations (1976)
The Consciousness of Joyce (1977)
James Joyce's hundredth birthday, side and front views: A lecture delivered at the
Library of Congress on March 10, 1982 (1982)
Oscar Wilde at Oxford (1984)
W. B. Yeats's Second Puberty; A Lecture Delivered At The Library Of Congress On
April 2, 1984 (1985)
Oscar Wilde (1987) [but see Horst Schroeder: Additions and Corrections to Richard
Ellmann's OSCAR WILDE, second edition, revised and enlarged (2002)]
Four Dubliners: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett (1987)
a long the riverrun: Selected Essays (1988)
As editor

My Brother's Keeper: James Joyce's Early Years (Stanislaus Joyce; ed. Richard
Ellmann, 1958)
The Critical Writings of James Joyce (Eds. Ellsworth Mason and Richard Ellmann,
1959)
Edwardians and Late Victorians (Edited and with a Foreword by Richard Ellmann,
1960)
The Modern Tradition: Backgrounds of Modern Literature (with Charles Feidelson,
Jr., 1965)
Letters of James Joyce Vol. 2 (Ed. Richard Ellmann, 1966)
Letters of James Joyce Vol. 3 (Ed. Richard Ellmann, 1966)
Giacomo Joyce (James Joyce; ed. Richard Ellmann, 1968)
Oscar Wilde: a Collection of Critical Essays (Ed. Richard Ellmann, 1969)
The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde" (Ed. Richard Ellmann, 1969)
The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (Eds. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair,
1973)
Selected Letters of James Joyce (Ed. Richard Ellmann, 1975)
Modern Poems: An Introduction to Poetry (Eds. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair,
1976)
The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde (Ed. Ellmann, 1982)
References
"National Book Awards � 1960". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
It contains Ellman's acceptance speech.
Richard Ellmann: A Chronology, The University of Tulsa.
Historical Register of Yale University, 1937-1951 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1952), p. 80.
1970 TCD Association Register.
Yale Banner 1939
Menand, Louis, "Silence, Exile, Punning: James Joyce's chance encounters". The New
Yorker, 2 July 2012, pp. 71�75.
 Interview, The Art of Fiction No. 82, The Paris Review, Issue 92, Summer 1984.
Oscar Wilde, by Richard Ellmann, The 1989 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Biography or
Autobiography.
"The 10 most popular misconceptions about Oscar Wilde". The Guardian. London. 22
July 2008.
"All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists". National Book
Critics Circle. Retrieved 22 February 2010.
"Autobiography or Biography". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer
Prizes. Retrieved 22 February 2010.
Holland, Merlin (7 May 2003). "The 10 most popular misconceptions about Oscar
Wilde". London: Guardian. Retrieved 22 February 2010.
"Ray Monk on Philosophy and Biography" (audio). philosophy bites. 31 August 2008.
Retrieved 22 February 2010.
"History". The Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature. Emory University.
Retrieved 2018-10-21.
Sources
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
External links
University of Tulsa McFarlin Library's inventory of the Richard Ellmann collection
housed in their special collections department
Richard Ellmann Papers, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois
vte
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1976�2000)
vte
James Joyce
Authority control Edit this at Wikidata
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1027 8485LCCN: n79086281LNB: 000039368NDL: 00438838NKC: skuk0000360NLA:
35062907NLI: 000232673NLK: KAC201907254NLP: A12491974NTA: 072590181SELIBR:
221014SNAC: w67080wpSUDOC: 026850222Trove: 815698VIAF: 61545326WorldCat Identities:
lccn-n79086281
Categories: 1918 births1987 deathsAmerican literary criticsAmerican people of
Romanian-Jewish descentAmerican people of Ukrainian descentBritish JewsDeaths from
motor neuron diseaseFellows of New College, OxfordFellows of the British
AcademyJewish American writersJames Joyce scholarsJames Tait Black Memorial Prize
recipientsNational Book Award winnersPeople from Highland Park, MichiganPulitzer
Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners20th-century American writersW. B.
Yeats scholarsWriters from MichiganYale University alumni
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