Description
Papers of Robert Peters, American poet, critic, scholar, and teacher. A professor of literature (1968-1991) at the University
of California, Irvine, Peters reviewed contemporary poetry for small press magazines beginning in the 1970s, published over
thirty poetry collections, and performed his work internationally. Materials include manuscript drafts of recent writing,
including individual poems and drafts for collected poetry publications, book reviews (1993-2001); several novels; play scripts;
correspondence; and journals.
Background
Robert Peters, distinguished American poet, critic, scholar and teacher, was born in 1924 in Eagle River, Wisconsin. His
father, Samuel, and mother, Dorothy, were farmers, and his own hard physical work and closeness to the land may contribute
to the preference for the concrete over the abstract in his poetry, criticism, and scholarship. He studied British literature
at the University of Wisconsin, receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1952 with a dissertation on several late Victorian poets and
their relationship to the visual arts. It served as the basis for his major scholarly work, THE CROWNS OF APOLLO: SWINBURNE'S
PRINCIPLES OF LITERATURE AND ART (Wayne State University Press, 1965). He co-edited the 3-volume edition of THE LETTERS OF
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONS (Wayne State University Press, 1967-69) and edited LETTERS TO A TUTOR: THE TENNYSON FAMILY LETTERS TO
HENRY GRAHAM DAYKINS, 1866-1911 (Scarecrow Press, 1988) and Edmund Gosse's diary of his visit to America (Purdue University,
1966) among other scholarly pursuits in the field of Victorian literature. After several post-doctoral stints (University
of Idaho, Boston University, and Ohio Wesleyan University), Peters received tenure in the English Department of Wayne State
University. In 1963, he was hired by the rapidly expanding University of California, Riverside and five years later transferred
to the University of California, Irvine, from which he retired in 1992.