| Year |
Wallace Stevens (number
indicates Stevens' age that year) |
World/Cultural Events |
| 1879 |
Wallace Stevens born on
October 2 in Reading, PA |
Zulu
War in South Africa, Stalin, Paul Klee, E. M. Forster, Albert Einstein
born; Ibsen’s A Doll House produced; Henry George’s Progress
and Poverty published |
| 1880 |
1 |
Garfield
becomes President, Helen Keller born, first electric light, New York streets
first lit with electricity, first canned meats |
| 1881 |
2 |
Pres.
Garfield killed; Chester Arthur becomes President, Dostoevsky, Carlyle,
die, James’ Portrait of a Lady published, Picasso, Bartok born,
New York population reaches 1.2 million |
| 1882 |
3 |
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Stravinsky born, Darwin,
Emerson die, John L. Sullivan becomes Heavyweight Boxing Champion |
| 1883 |
4 |
Mussolini,
Franz Kafka, Anton Webern, born; Karl Marx, Wagner die; Nietzsche’s Thus
Spake Zarathustra published, first skyscraper, Brooklyn Bridge opens |
| 1884 |
5 |
Harry
S. Truman born, Huckleberry Finn published, Oxford English Dictionary
begins publication; steam turbine engine invented, first underground railroad
(London) |
| 1885 |
6 |
Belgium
annexes Congo, Grover Cleveland becomes President, U. S. Grant dies, D.
H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Sinclair Lewis born, Van Gogh’s "The Potato Eaters"
painted, The Mikado produced in London, Pasteur develops rabies
vaccine |
| 1886 |
7 |
Seurat’s
"Sunday Afternoon on the Grande Jatte" painted, Last impressionist exhibition
(Paris), Statue of Liberty dedicated, Franz Liszt dies, A.F.L. founded |
| 1887 |
8 |
first
Sherlock Holmes story, Marc Chagall born |
| 1888 |
9 |
Benjamin
Harrison becomes President, Bellamy’s Looking Backwards published,
Matthew Arnold dies, T. S. Eliot, Eugene O’Neill, T. E. Lawrence, Irving
Berlin, Jim Thorpe born, Kodak box camera introduced, Jack the Ripper murders
six |
| 1889 |
10 |
N.
Dakota, S. Dakota, Montana, & Washington become states, Hitler Charlie
Chaplin, Martin Heidegger, Cocteau, E. P. Hubble born, Robert Browning
dies, Eiffel Tower designed |
| 1890 |
11 |
Idaho
and Wyoming become states; Charles De Gaulle, Dwight Eisenhower born, Ibsen’s
Hedda
Gabler produced, Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, William
James’ The Principles of Psychology published, Van Gogh dies, global
influenza epidemic, first steel framed building, first motion picture shown
in New York |
| 1891 |
12 |
Hardy’s
Tess
of the D’Urbervilles published, Melville, Rimbaud Seurat die, Gauguin
settles in Tahiti, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, Prokofiev born |
| 1892 |
13 |
Grover
Cleveland again elected President, Walt Whitman, Alfred Lord Tennyson die,
Monet begins painting Rouen Cathedral, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker
produced,
first telephone switchboard |
| 1893 |
14 |
Cole
Porter born, Tchaikovsky dies, Dvorák’s New World Symphony performed,
Henry Ford builds his first car, World Exhibition in Chicago |
| 1894 |
15 |
Dreyfuss
trial in France, Alduous Huxley born, Edison opens Kinetoscope Parlor,
Aubrey Beardsley’s Salome drawings, Lumiere invents cinematograph |
| 1895 |
16 |
Rhodesia
founded, King George VI, Babe Ruth born, H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine
published, Marconi invents radio telegraphy, Pasteur dies, Röentgen
discovers x-ray |
| 1896 |
17 |
Utah
becomes state, John Dos Passos born, William McKinley elected President,
Bergson’s Matter and Memory published, Nobel Prizes established,
radioactivity discovered, first modern Olympics, Klondike gold rush |
| 1897 |
18
Enters Harvard |
Havelock
Ellis’ The Psychology of Sex published, Rousseau’s "The Sleeping
Gypsy," Brahms dies, Thomson discovers electron, World Exhibition in Brussels,
first Zionist Congress; Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, Benjamin Whorf
born |
| 1898 |
19 |
Spanish-American
War begins, Bismarck, Gladstone, Lewis Carroll, Stéphane Mallarme
die, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Robeson, Ernest Hemingway, Owen Barfield born,
Curies discover radium, Paris métro opened |
| 1899 |
20 |
Noel
Coward, Federico Garcia Lorca born, Wilde’s The Importance of Being
Earnest produced, Dewey’s School and Society published, Johann
Strauss dies, first magnetic recording of sound |
| 1900 |
21
Finishes three year program at Harvard |
Australia
founded, McKinley reelected, Conrad’s Lord Jim, Dreiser’s Sister
Carrie, Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams published, Stephen
Crane, John Ruskin, Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche die, Thomas Wolfe, Aaron Copeland,
Kurt Weill born, first film by Méliés, quantum theory formulated |
| 1901 |
22
Attends New York Law School |
Boxer
uprising in China ends, Mann’s Buddenbrooks, Frank Norris’ The
Octopus published, Rudolf Steiner founds Anthroposophy, Walt Disney,
Enrico Fermi born, Toulouse-Lautrec, Verdi die, Picasso’s "Blue Period"
begins, first ragtime jazz in U.S., U.S. Steel founded |
| 1902 |
23
|
U.S.
acquires control of Panama Canal, Cecil Rhodes dies, Gide’s The Immortalist,
James’
The
Varieties of Religious Experience published, Steinbeck born, Emile
Zola dies, first recording by Caruso |
| 1903 |
24
Graduates from New York Law School,
June 10 |
Evelyn
Waugh born, James’ The Ambassadors published, Whistler, Gauguin,
Pissarro die, film The Great Train Robbery released, Wright brothers’
first successful flight, first baseball World Series |
| 1904 |
25
Admitted to New York State bar; meets
Elsie Kachel |
Russo-Japanese
war begins, Theodore Roosevelt elected President, Graham Greene, Salvador
Dali born, Chekhov, Dvorak die, Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday
Life, Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
published,
woman arrested in NY for smoking in public |
| 1905 |
26
|
first
Futurist manifesto, Einstein formulates Special Theory of Relativity, Jules
Verne dies |
| 1906 |
27 |
Ibsen,
Cezanne die, Sinclair’s The Jungle published, Shaw’s Man and
Superman opens in NY, Greta Garbo born, Amundsen discovers North Pole,
population of New York: 4 million |
| 1907 |
28 |
Oklahoma
becomes state, Rasputin gains influence over Czar Nicholas II, Kipling
wins Nobel Prize for Lit., W. H. Auden born, Mendeleyev dies, Strindberg’s
The
Ghost Sonata produced, Bergson’s Creative Evolution published,
Picasso’s "Demoiselles d’Avignon," first Ziegfeld follies, Pavlov’s discoveries
concerning conditioned reflexes, Boy Scouts founded, first comic strip
("Mr. Mutt") |
| 1908 |
29
Engaged to Elsie Kachel |
South
Africa established, Taft elected President, Lyndon Johnson, Simone de Beauvoir
born, Forster’s A Room With a View published, "Ashcan School" of
painting established, Rimsky-Korsakov, Grover Cleveland die, General Motors
formed, first Model "T" produced |
| 1909 |
30
Marries Elsie Kachel on 9/21 |
Stephen
Spender born, first D. W. Griffith film with Mary Pickford, Mahler’s Symphony
No. 9, Diaghilev’s "Ballet Russe" performs for the first time, cure
for syphilis found, Peary reaches the North pole; Selfridges opens in London |
| 1910 |
31
|
Edward
VII succeeded by George V, Japan annexes Korea, Mark Twain, Tolstoi, Mary
Baker Eddy, William James, Henri Rousseau, Florence Nightingale, Winslow
Homer die, "Post-Impressionist" exhibit in Paris, Stravinsky’s The Firebird
performed,
Halley’s comet appears |
| 1911 |
32
Stevens’ father dies, July 14 |
Mexican
Civil War ends, Sun Yat-sen elected President of new Chinese Republic,
W. S. Gilbert, Wilhelm Dilthey, Gustave Mahler die, Braque paints "Man
With the Blue Guitar," Maurice Maeterlinck wins Nobel Prize for Lit., Hans
Vaihinger publishes The Philosophy of As If, Amundsen reaches South
Pole, Rutherford formulates theory of atomic structure |
| 1912 |
33
Stevens’ mother dies, July 16 |
Arizona
and New Mexico becomes US states, Woodrow Wilson elected President, August
Strindberg dies, Eugen Ionesco born, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse founded,
Synge’s Playboy of the Western World produced, Jung publishes The
Theory of Psychoanalysis; movie attendance reaches approx. 5,000,000
daily in US, Wilson’s cloud-chamber leads to detection of protons and electrons,
"Piltdown Man" found (later proved to be a hoax), Woolworth company founded |
| 1913 |
34
Attends Armory Show |
US
federal income tax introduced (16th amendment), Mahatma Gandhi arrested
for first time, Richard Nixon, Camus born, Tagore wins Nobel Prize for
literature, Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, Proust’s Remembrance
of Things Past (first volume) published, Whitehead and Russell’s
Principia
Mathematica completed, Goetheanum (headquarters for Anthroposophy)
founded in Dornach, Switzerland, "Armory Show" introduces postimpressionism
and cubism to New York; Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring performed in
Paris; Geiger counter invented, zippers first become popular |
| 1914 |
35
"Carnet de Voyage" published in Trend |
Archduke
Ferdinand assassinated; World War I begins, Georg Trakl dies, Joyce publishes
Dubliners,
Tennessee
Williams born, Goddard begins rocketry experiments, Panama Canal opens |
| 1915 |
36
"Sunday Morning" in Poetry |
World
War I intensifies, Lawrence’s ishes The Rainbow, Masters’ A Spoon
River Anthology published, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow born, Griffith’s
Birth
of Nation released, Scriabin dies, Einstein postulates General Theory
of Relativity, first transcontinental telephone call, Ford produces one
million cars |
| 1916 |
37
Joins Hartford Accident and Indemnity
Company; moves to Hartford in May
Wins $100 prize from Poetry for
"Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise" |
World
War I continues, Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Edwin
Arlington Robinson’s The Man Against the Sky published, Henry James,
Rasputin, Thomas Eakins die, Dadaist cult in Zurich, Griffith’s Intolerance
released,
Yehudi Menuhin born, Woodrow Wilson reelected President, Louis Brandeis
joins Supreme Court |
| 1917 |
38 |
World
War I continues, US joins fighting, John Fitzgerald Kennedy born; Mata
Hari executed, Sarah Bernhardt begins last tour, Rodin, Buffalo Bill Body
die, Communist revolution in Russia |
| 1918 |
39 |
World
War I comes to an end, Edmund Rostand, Wilfred Owen, Henry Adams, Debussy
die, Charles Horton Cooley’s Social Progress, Oswald Spengler’s
The
Decline of the West (first volume) published, first painting
by Joan Miró, The Education of Henry Adams wins Pulitzer
Prize, Benjamin Whorf joins the Hartford |
| 1919 |
40 |
Theodore
Roosevelt, Pierre Auguste Renoir die, first League of Nations meeting in
Paris, Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, Hesse’s Demian, Mencken’s
The
American Language published, Edgar Varése conducts New
York Symphony’s first concert of modern music, observations of total eclipse
of the sun bear out Einstein’s theory of relativity, RCA founded, "Black
Sox" baseball bribery scandal |
| 1920 |
41 |
US
Senate votes against joining League of Nations, Warren G. Harding elected
President, Knut Hamsun wins Nobel Prize for Lit., William Dean Howells,
Modigliani die, O’Neill wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Emperor Jones,
Samuel
Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity, Jung’s Psychological Types,
Valery’s
Le Cimetiére marin published, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
released, Wharton’s The Age of Innocence wins Pulitzer Prize
for fiction, first performance of Holst’s The PlanetsAnatole
France wins Nobel Prize for Lit., Lawrence publishes
Women in Love,
Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author
produced,
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus published, chromosome
theory of heredity first proposed, BBC founded, Saccho and Vanzetti found
guilty of murder, William Howard Taft becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, Saint-Saëns dies |
| 1921 |
42
The Hartford moves to its new bulding
on Asylum Ave. |
Anatole
France wins Nobel Prize for Lit., Lawrence publishes Women in Love,
Pirandello’s
Six
Characters in Search of an Author produced, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
Logicus Philosophicus published, chromosome theory of heredity first
proposed, BBC founded, Saccho and Vanzetti found guilty of murder, William
Howard Taft becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Saint-Saëns
dies |
| 1922 |
43
|
T.
S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Joyce’s Ulysses, Rilke’s Duino
Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus published, Marc Chagall
leaves Russia for Paris, Flaherty completes Nanook of the North, Proust
dies |
| 1923 |
44
Harmonium published by Knopf;
on October 18, the Stevenses sail from New York on a cruise to California,
returning in December (Holly conceived on trip) |
Teapot Dome Scandal,
Hitler’s "Beer Hall Putsch" fails, William Butler Yeats wins Nobel Prize
for Lit., Robert Frost’s New Hampshire, e. e. cummings’ The Enormous
Room, Le Corbusier’s Toward a New Architecture, Martin Buber’s
I
and Thou published, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue performed,
process for sound motion pictures developed, Messerschmitt aircraft factory
opens, Pres. Harding dies, succeeded by Calvin Coolidge, Katherine Mansfield
dies |
| 1924 |
45
Holly Bright Stevens born, August 10
(Elsie is 38 years old) |
Lenin,
Franz Kafka, Woodrow Wilson, Louis Sullivan, Joseph Conrad die, Shaw’s
Back
to Methusaleh, Forster’s A Passage to India, Freud’s
Collected
Writings published, Gandhi conducts 21 day fast, Calvin Coolidge elected
President, René Clair’s film Entracte andLéger’s Ballet
Méchanique released, J. Edgar Hoover becomes Director of the
F.B.I., first use of insecticides, 25 million radios in use in US |
| 1925 |
46 |
Sun Yat-sen, William
Jennings Bryan, Amy Lowell, Rudolf Steiner, Erik Satie die, Dreiser’s An
American Tragedy, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s
In
Our Time published, Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin released,
solar eclipse in New York, Scopes "Monkey" trial |
| 1926 |
47 |
Queen
Elizabeth II born, Hirohito becomes Japanese Emperor, Eugene V. Debs, Rainer
Maria Rilke, Claude Monet, Luther Burbank, Harry Houdini die, Hemingway’s
The
Sun Also Rises, Kafka’s The Castle, Milne’s Winnie the Pooh
published,
Lang’s Metropolis released, first liquid fuel rocket, first 16 mm
movie camera made by Kodak |
| 1927 |
48 |
Bergson
wins Nobel Prize for Lit., Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Traven’s The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Freud’s The Future of an Illusion
published,
The Jazz Singer in movie theatres, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
published, Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic, Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs |
| 1928 |
49 |
Chang Kai-Shek becomes President of China, Thomas Hardy dies, Lawrence’s Lady
Chatterly’s Lover published, first Mickey Mouse films, Gershwin’s An
American in Paris, Ravel’s Bolero performed, Toscanini becomes
conductor of New York Philharmonic, penicillin discovered, first scheduled
TV broadcast, Amelia Earhart flies the Atlantic, Herbert Hoover elected
President |
| 1929 |
50 |
Trotsky
expelled from USSR, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Lewis’ Dodsworth,
Remarque’s
All
Quiet on the Western Front, Woolf’s A room of One’s Own,
Wolfe’s
Look Homeward Angel, Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury published,
first "talkies," Museum of Modern Art opens in NY, US Stock Exchange collapses,
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre |
| 1930 |
51 |
William
Howard Taft, D. H. Lawrence die, Nazis gain 107 seats in German election,
Hart Crane’s The Bridge, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, published,
Blue
Angel released, development of cyclotron, Pluto discovered, building
of Maginot line begins, Wood’s American Gothic painted |
| 1931 |
52 |
Jane
Addams wins Nobel Peace Prize, Robert Frost wins Pulitzer Prize for Collected
Poems, Vachel Lindsay, Thomas Alva Edison, Anna Pavlova die, Frankenstein
in
movie theatres, Capone jailed for income tax evasion |
| 1932 |
53
Move to Westerly Terrace, Hartford |
Hitler
wins 11 million votes in German election, Roosevelt elected President,
John Galsworthy wins Nobel Prize for Lit., Alexander Calder exhibits mobiles,
Shirley Temple’s first film, Schönberg’s Moses and Aaron premieres,
Heisenberg wins Nobel Prize for physics, Lindbergh baby kidnapped, Roosevelt
speaks of "New Deal," Hart Crane dies, |
| 1933 |
54 |
Calvin
Coolidge, Ring Lardner die, Hitler becomes German Chancellor, first aircraft
carrier launched, first concentration camps erected, Lorca’s Blood Wedding
produced,
Malraux’s La Condition Humaine, Jung’s Modern Man in Search of
a Soul, Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
published,
Garbo stars in Queen Christina, positrons discovered, Thomas Hunt
Morgan wins Nobel Prize for study of chromosomes |
| 1934 |
55
Becomes Vice-President of the Hartford,
head of the bonding Division |
Fitzgerald’s
Tender
is the Night, Toynbee’s A Study of History, Carnap’s
Logical
Syntax of Language, Ezra Pound’s ABC of Reading published,
It
Happened One Night in movie theatres, Gustave Holst dies, first volume
of F.B.I. kills John Dillinger |
| 1935 |
56
Ideas of Order published by
Alcestis Press |
Eliot’s
Murder
in the Cathedral, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here
published,
39
Steps in movie theatres, Alban Berg dies, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess
produced, Curies win the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Rhumba becomes
the fashionable dance |
| 1936 |
57
Owl’s Clover published by Alcestis
Press; reads "The Irrational Element in Poetry" at Harvard, 12/8 |
Spanish
Civil War begins, Roosevelt re-elected President, Dale Carnegie publishes
How
to Win Friends and Influence People, Gone with the Wind wins the Pulitzer
Prize, Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman, Luigi Pirandello, Maxim Gorki, Garcia-Lorca,
Miquel de Unamuno, Ottorino Respighi, Ivan Pavlov die, Modern Times,
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town in movie theatres, Boulder Dam completed, BBC
television begins. Hauptman convicted of kidnapping & killing Lindbergh
baby |
| 1937 |
58
The Man With the Blue Guitar published
by Knopf. |
George
VI become king of Great Britain, Spanish Civil War rages on, Dos Passos’
U.S.A.
trilogy,
Sartre’s La Nausée, Karen Horney’s
The Neurotic Personality
in Our Time, Renoir’s La Grande
Illusion released, George
Gershwin, Edith Wharton die, Orff’s Carmina Burina
performed, dirigible
Hindenburg explodes, Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson |
| 1938 |
59
Reads "The Noble Rider and the Sound
of Words" at Princeton on 5/8 |
Japanese
occupy China, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ The Yearling wins Pulitzer
Prize, Johann Huizinga publishes Homo Ludens, Bela Bartók’s
Violin
Concerto performed, Thomas Wolfe, Edmund Husserl, Clarence Darrow die |
| 1939 |
60 |
Joyce
publishes Finnegans Wake, William Butler Yeats, Ford Maddox Ford
die, DDT synthesized, first helicopter constructed, Gone with the Wind,
The Wizard of Oz in movie theatres |
| 1940 |
61 |
British
forces evacuated from Dunkirk, London blitz begins, Trotsky assassinated,
Roosevelt elected to third term as President, Adler’s How to Read a
Book, Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Richard Wright’s
Native
Son published, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, Paul Klee die,
Grapes
of Wrath, Fantasia in movie theatres |
| 1941 |
62 |
Japanese
attack Pearl Harbor, US enters World War II, Louis Brandeis, Sherwood Anderson,
James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Henri Bergson. Lou Gehrig die, Citizen
Kane in movie theatres, Manhattan Project begins, Joe DiMaggio hits
safely in 56 consecutive games, Benjamin Whorf dies at 43 |
| 1942 |
63
Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction published
by Cummington Press. Parts of a World published by Knopf. |
World
War II continues, Eliot’s Four Quartets, Camus’L’Étranger
published,
Thorton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth produced, George M. Cohan,
John Barrymore, Franz Kafka die, To Be or Not to Be
in movie theatres,
first electronic computer developed in the US, first jet airplane tested |
| 1943 |
64
Reads "The Figure of the Youth as Virile
Poet" at Mount Holyoke |
World
War II continues, Martha Graham dances Deaths and Entrances, first
one-man show by Jackson Pollock, Casablanca wins Oscar for best
picture, Chaim Soutine, George Washington Carver, Nikola Tesla, Rachmaninoff
die, Penicillin proves successful |
| 1944 |
65
"The Figure of the Youth as Virile
Poet" publishes in Sewanee Review; Holly Stevens marries John Martin
Hanchak on 8/5 |
World
War II continues, D-Day invasion, Dumbarton Oaks Conference, Roosevelt
elected President for fourth term, Williams’ The Glass Menageries, Sartre’s
No
Exit produced, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wassily Kandindsky,
Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch die, Copeland’s Appalachian Spring wins
Pulitzer Prize |
| 1945 |
66
Elected to National Institute of Arts
and Letters; Esthétique du Mal published by Cummington Press. |
World
War II ends, Yalta Conference, Pres. Roosevelt dies, Harry S. Truman becomes
President, Hitler commits suicide, Mussolini killed, US drops atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Nuremberg trials begin, Gen. George S. Patton,
Paul Valery, Ernst Cassirer, Käthe Kollwitz, Anton von Webern, Bella
Bartok die, Hesse’s Glass-Bead Game published, The Lost Weekend
in
movie theatres |
| 1946 |
67
|
First
United Nations General Assembly, Juan Peron becomes President of Argentina,
Churchill gives his "Iron Curtain" speech, Nuremberg trials completed,
Warren’s All the King’s Men wins Pulitzer, Gertrude Stein, W. C.
Fields, John Maynard Keynes, Alfred Stieglitz die, Hermann Hesse wins Nobel
Prize for Lit., The Best Years of Our Lives in movie theatres |
| 1947 |
68
Reads "Three Academic Pieces" at Harvard
on 2/11; Transport to Summer published by Knopf; "Three Academic
Pieces" published by Partisan Review; Three Academic Pieces published
by Cummington Press; grandson, Peter Reed Hanchak born in April. |
Plans
made for partition of Palestine and formation of Israel, India and Pakistan
become independent nations, Taft-Hartley act published, Willa Cather, Alfred
North Whitehead, Max Planck, Henry Ford, Al Capone die, flying saucer reports
rampant in US, Camus’ The Plague, Mann’s Doctor Faustus published,
Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire wins Pulitzer Prize, André
Gide wins Nobel Prize for Lit. |
| 1948 |
69
Reads "Effects of Analogy" at Yale
March 18 and at Mount Holyoke on April 2; reads "Imagination as Value"
at Columbia on September 10; "One of Marianne Moore’s Poems" published
in Quarterly Review of Literature; "Effects of Analogy" published
in Yale Review. |
Gandhi
assassinated, Marshall Plan enacted, Harry S. Truman elected President,
Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead published, T. S. Eliot wins Nobel
Prize for Lit., The Bicycle Thief released, D. W. Griffith, Ruth
Benedict, Babe Ruth die, Joe Lewis retires, long-playing record patented,
Mount Palomar telescope dedicated |
| 1949 |
70
"Imagination as Value" published in
English
Institute Essays. |
People’s
Republic of China formed--Mao Tse-Tung first Premier, NATO formed, Orwell’s
1984
published,
Miller’s The Death of a Salesman produced (wins Pulitzer Prize),
James Ensor, Richard Strauss die, USSR tests first atomic bomb, Apartheid
established in South Africa |
| 1950 |
71
Wins Bollingen Prize in Poetry; The
Auroras of Autumn published by Knopf. |
Chiang Kai-Shek becomes President of Nationalist China, Senator Joseph McCarthy
denounces communists in the State Department, Korean War begins, George
Bernard Shaw, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Kurt Weill,
first appearance of "cool jazz," plutonium developed, Einstein’s General
Field Theory, die, Bertrand Russell wins Nobel Prize for Lit. |
| 1951 |
72
The Necessary Angel published
by Knopf; wins The National Book Award (for Auroras of Autumn);
reads "The Relations Between Poetry and Painting" at the Museum of Modern
Art; reads "A Collect of Philosophy" at the University of Chicago on Nov.
16 and at City College of New York on Nov. 26; Holly Stevens divorced on
Sept. 25. |
22nd
Amendment passed, Frost’s Complete Poems, Salinger’s The Catcher
in the Rye published, Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny wins Pulitzer
Prize, Sinclair Lewis, Harold Ross, Leadbelly, William Randolph Hearst
die, The African Queen, Streetcar Named Desire in movie theatres |
| 1952 |
73 |
Eisenhower
elected President, Albert Schweitzer wins Nobel Peace Prize, Hemingway’s
The
Old Man and the Sea, Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man published,
Marianne Moore’s Collected Poems wins Pulitzer Prizes, Peale’s The
Power of Positive Thinking published, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
produced,
High
Noon in movie theatres, US tests hydrogen bomb, George Santayana, Benedetto
Croce die |
| 1953 |
74
Selected Poems published by
Faber and Faber in England. |
Tito
become President of Yugoslavia, Stalin, Dylan Thomas, Raoul Dufy die, USSR
explodes hydrogen bomb, Mount Everest first climbed, Dag Hammarskjöld
becomes Secretary-General of United Nations, Queen Elizabeth II crowned,
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible produced, Bellow’s The Adventures
of Augie March, MacLeish’s Collected Poems, de Beauvoir’s The
Second Sex, the Kinsey Report published, Rosenbergs executed,
Korean armistice signed |
| 1954 |
75
Reads "The Whole Man: Perspectives,
Horizons" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 21; Collected Poems
published
by Knopf. |
Nasser
seizes power in Egypt; Brown vs. Board of Education, Colette, Matisse,
Charles Ives die, Senator McCarthy censured, Robert Oppenheimer dismissed
from government service, first nuclear-powered submarine, Hemingway wins
Nobel Prize for Lit., Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, Tolkien’s
The
Lord of the Rings published, Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
and
Roetke’s The Waking win Pulitzer Prizes for drama and poetry |
| 1955 |
Wins National Book Award
and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (for Collected Poems). Wallace Stevens
dies on August 2. |
Churchill
resigns. A.F.L. and C.I.O. merge, Montgomery bus boycott, Paul Claudel,
James Agee, Ortega y Gasset, Maurice Utrillo, Charlie Parker, Albert Einstein
die, Nabokov’s Lolita, Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel
Suit, Rudolf Flesch’s Why Johnny Can’t Read published, first
use of atomic power |
| 1956 |
|
|
| 1957 |
Opus
Posthumous first published |
|
