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Schuyler (James) Papers
MSS 0078
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: James Schuyler Papers
Creator:
Schuyler, James
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0078
Physical Description:
14 Linear feet
(29 archives boxes, 4 card file boxes, 1 carton, 5 map case folders)
Date (inclusive): 1947-1991
Abstract: Papers of James Schuyler (1923-1991), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and member of the New York School circle of poets and painters.
A New York City resident since 1950, Schuyler moved among prominent artists and writers of the period and worked as an art
critic and associate editor for
Art News from 1955 to circa 1962, and in the Museum of Modern Art beginning in 1957. He published his first novel,
Alfred and Guinevere, in 1958 and continued a distinguished career, publishing twelve books of poetry and two additional novels, including
A Nest of Ninnies with John Ashbery. Schuyler's collection of poems entitled
The Morning of the Poem won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. The bulk of the materials date between 1950 and 1970, with a second field of concentration
in the late 1980s, and include correspondence with contemporary writers and visual artists, including John Ashbery, Frank
O'Hara, Joe Brainard, Kenward Elmslie, Barbara Guest, Fairfield Porter, Ron Padgett, and Anne Waldman. Also included are manuscripts
and typescripts;
Art News materials; notebooks; diaries; miscellaneous subject files; and rare audio recordings.
Languages:
English
.
Original media formats are restricted. Viewing/listening copies are available for researchers.
Scope and Content of Collection
Papers of James Schuyler, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and member of the New York School circle of poets and painters. A New
York City resident since 1950, Schuyler moved among prominent artists and writers of the period and worked as an art critic
and associate editor for
Art News from 1955 to circa 1962, and in the Museum of Modern Art beginning in 1957. He published his first novel,
Alfred and Guinevere, in 1958 and continued a distinguished career, publishing twelve books of poetry and two additional novels, including
A Nest of Ninnies with John Ashbery. Schuyler's collection of poems entitled
The Morning of the Poem won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. The bulk of the materials date between 1950 and 1970, with a second field of concentration
in the late 1980s, and include correspondence with contemporary writers and visual artists, including John Ashbery, Frank
O'Hara, Joe Brainard, Kenward Elmslie, Barbara Guest, Fairfield Porter, Ron Padgett, and Anne Waldman. Also included are manuscripts
and typescripts;
Art News materials; notebooks; diaries; miscellaneous subject files; and rare audio recordings.
Accessions Processed in 1992
Contains manuscripts or typescripts for most of Schuyler's works, in addition to abundant correspondence, especially with
painters, poets, and writers of the New York School circle.
Arranged into eight series: 1) ORIGINAL FINDING AID, 2) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 3) CORRESPONDENCE, 4) WRITINGS, 5) WRITINGS
OF OTHERS, 6) SUBJECTS, 7) AUDIO TAPE RECORDINGS, and 8) ORIGINALS OF PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPIES.
Accession Processed in 1993
This substantive accession provides a wealth of biographical information, and includes correspondence from Schuyler's lovers
and closest friends, initially withheld from the collection.
Arranged into five series: 9) CORRESPONDENCE, 10) WRITINGS, 11) PHOTOGRAPHS, 12) OTHER WRITERS, and 13) MISCELLANEOUS.
Born on November 9, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois, James Marcus Schuyler experienced a peripatetic childhood. His family lived
for a time in Downer's Grove, a suburb of Chicago, then Washington, D.C., and later Chevy Chase, Maryland. His parents divorced
early in Schuyler's childhood and he remained with his mother and step-father. At the age of twelve, his family moved to Buffalo,
New York, and two years later to East Aurora, a suburb outside of Buffalo.
Schuyler attended Bethany College in West Virginia from 1941 to 1943. There he pursued interests in history, architecture,
and literature. During World War II, in 1943, he joined the U.S. Navy. He spent the next two years on a destroyer in the North
Atlantic, protecting convoys. He remained in the Navy after the war.
In 1947, Schuyler moved to the Isle of Ischia in Italy for two years. There he lived in the rented house of W.H. Auden, whom
he had met in New York. Schuyler served as Auden's secretary, typing the manuscript for Auden's book
Gnomes and Auden's translation of Jean Cocteau's "Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde." Schuyler also attended the University of Florence
at this time, and he began writing poetry. Although he returned to New York briefly, an inheritance allowed him the financial
independence to return to Florence in mid-1950.
Schuyler began writing seriously in the late 1940's, but an important breakthrough in his career came in 1951. As a result
of his correspondence with Howard Moss, Moss published Schuyler's poem "Salute", written in the hospital in White Plains,
New York. Moss later published three of Schuyler's short stories in the magazine
Accent along with a poem entitled "Three Penny Opera" by Frank O'Hara. At a party, Moss introduced Schuyler to Frank O'Hara and
John Ashbery, who had been Moss's schoolmates at Harvard.
Schuyler soon became involved with the so-called New York School of writers and artists. By 1951, he and Frank O'Hara shared
an apartment on 49th Street, where they were later joined by John Ashbery after Ashbery's return from France. Schuyler worked
for a while at a bookshop on 54th street and later, with the financial assistance of a friend, devoted himself to writing
what would become his first novel,
Alfred and Guinevere. By 1955 he was working for the magazine
Art News as an art critic and associate editor. His colleagues at
Art News included John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Fairfield Porter, and Elaine De Kooning. For this journal Schuyler reviewed exhibitions
and wrote articles. By 1957 he was also working for the Museum of Modern Art in the Department of Circulating Exhibitions.
Schuyler's writing career expanded greatly in the mid-1950s and 1960s. He wrote the libretto for Paul Bowles' recording entitled
A Picnic Cantata (1955) and two off-broadway plays,
Presenting Jane (1952) and
Shopping and Waiting (1953). In 1958 he published his first novel,
Alfred and Guinevere, a book about children and their perceptions. Then came two collections of verse,
Salute (1960) and
May 24th or So (1966).
Between 1961 and 1973, Schuyler lived with the Fairfield Porter family in Southampton, Long Island, and moved among New York
poets and painters, including Fairfield Porter, Kenward Elmslie, Ron Padgett, and Joe Brainard. He collaborated with Kenward
Elmslie on the off-broadway play
Unpacking the Black Trunk (1965).
Collaborating with John Ashbery, Schuyler published the novel
A Nest of Ninnies in 1969. Begun early in their relationship, the novel is a satire on suburbanites and their lifestyles. This work appeared
at the same time as Schuyler's first major collection of poetry
Freely Espousing (1969).
Schuyler's productivity reached a zenith during the 1970s, with the publication of numerous collections of poems including
The Crystal Lithium (1972);
A Sun Cab (1972);
Penguin Modern Poets 24, with Kenneth Koch and Kenward Elmslie (1973);
Hymn to Life (1974);
Song (1976);
The Fireproof Floors of Witley Count: English Songs and Dances (1976); and The Home Book: Prose and Poems 1951-1970 (1977). Schuyler also produced his third novel entitled
What's for Dinner, published in 1978. His last work of the decade was
The Morning of the Poem (1980), for which he received a Pulitzer Prize.
Although well-known and successful by the early 1980s, Schuyler turned to a life of reclusion as poor health and financial
difficulties hindered his writing. He continued to live in New York City, and published two collections of poetry:
A Few Days (1985) and
Selected Poems (1988).
In addition to a Pulitzer Prize for
The Morning of the Poem, Schuyler received the Longview Foundation award (1961), the Frank O'Hara Prize (1969), two National Academy for the Arts
grants (1969, 1972), an American Academy award (1977), and an Academy of American Poets fellowship (1983).
"James Schuyler's is a poetry of perception, the recognition of shapes out of the indiscriminate sensory field," wrote George
Butterick in
Contemporary Poets (1985). "Reading him," wrote Butterick, "there is a sense of focusing field glasses; always the sharper image results...Schuyler
is determined to possess the natural world without a lapse into symbolism. Nature is not to be quarreled with, nor confused
with human needs. The world is distinguishable among its parts as well as from the observing narrator. He has tried life and
it fits; life matches art..."
Schuyler died on April 12, 1991.
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
James Schuyler Papers, MSS 78. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
Acquired 1989, 1992.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Diaries -- 20th century
Gay men -- United States -- Poetry
American poetry -- 20th century
Gay men -- United States
Mathews, Harry, 1930-2017 -- Correspondence
Merrill, James, 1926-1995 -- Correspondence
Wieners, John, 1934-2002 -- Correspondence
Padgett, Ron, 1942- -- Correspondence
Ashbery, John, 1927-2017 -- Correspondence
Elmslie, Kenward -- Correspondence
Guest, Barbara -- Correspondence
O'Hara, Frank, 1926-1966 -- Correspondence
Freilicher, Jane, 1924-2014 -- Correspondence
Brainard, Joe, 1942-1994 -- Correspondence
Dash, Robert -- Correspondence
Button, John -- Correspondence
Waldman, Anne, 1945- -- Correspondence
Porter, Fairfield -- Correspondence
Schuyler, James -- Archives