Robert Hillyer

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

American poet (1895–1961)

title: "Robert Hillyer" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1895-births", "1961-deaths", "kent-school-alumni", "harvard-university-alumni", "harvard-advocate-alumni", "american-field-service-personnel-of-world-war-i", "20th-century-american-poets", "danish–english-translators", "20th-century-american-translators", "harvard-university-faculty", "trinity-college-(connecticut)-faculty", "st.-anthony-hall", "pulitzer-prize-for-poetry-winners", "kenyon-college-faculty", "university-of-delaware-faculty", "writers-from-east-orange,-new-jersey"] description: "American poet (1895–1961)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hillyer" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American poet (1895–1961) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox writer"]

FieldValue
nameRobert Hillyer
imageRobert Hillyer.jpg
birth_nameRobert Silliman Hillyer
birth_date
birth_placeEast Orange, New Jersey, US
death_date
death_placeWilmington, Delaware, US
occupationpoet, writer, university faculty
educationHarvard University (BA)
movementHarvard Aesthetes
notable_worksThe Collected Verse of Robert Hillyer
A Letter to Robert Frost and Others
awardsPulitzer Prize in Poetry, 1934
::

| name = Robert Hillyer | image = Robert Hillyer.jpg | birth_name = Robert Silliman Hillyer | birth_date = | birth_place = East Orange, New Jersey, US | death_date = | death_place = Wilmington, Delaware, US | occupation = poet, writer, university faculty | education = Harvard University (BA) | movement = Harvard Aesthetes | notable_works = The Collected Verse of Robert Hillyer A Letter to Robert Frost and Others | awards = Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, 1934 Robert Silliman Hillyer (June 3, 1895 – December 24, 1961) was an American poet and professor of English literature. He won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1934.

Early life

Hillyer was born in East Orange, New Jersey, to an old Connecticut family. He attended Kent School in Kent, Connecticut. After high school, he attended Harvard University, graduating cum laude in 1917. While there, he was the editor of the literary magazine The Harvard Advocate, and was affiliated with the group known as the Harvard Aesthetes.

When World War I began, he went to France and volunteered for the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, along with Harvard classmate John Dos Passos. Once the United States entered the war, he joined the American forces. After serving as an ambulance driver, Hillyer later returned to France to work in the US Ordnance Department. After the Armistice, Hillyer worked as a military courier for the 1919 peace conference in Paris. For a while Hillyer and John Dos Passos shared a flat in Paris and even collaborated on an unpublished novel which they called "Great Novel" (or "G.N.", or "Seven Times round the Walls of Jericho"). Eventually the novel was abandoned in 1921 even though Dos Passos said that Hillyer's contributions had "genuineness" and "more tone than mine."

Career

Academic

Hillyer became a professor of English at Harvard University in 1919. In the late 1920s, he taught at Trinity College and was made a member of the Epsilon chapter of the literary fraternity St. Anthony Hall in 1927.

From 1937 to 1944, he was named to the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. From 1948 to 1951 Hillyer was a visiting professor at Kenyon College. He also taught at the University of Delaware from 1952 until his death. While at Delaware Hillyer did various regular poetry readings between 1953 and 1960 which were recorded and are now available for listening through the university's archives.

Over his academic life, Hillyer taught a number of writers (and poets) who later became well-known such as Theodore Roethke, James Gould Cozzens, Howard Nemerov, James Agee, Norman Mailer, Robert Fitzgerald and John Simon.

Poet

In 1919, Hillyer described himself as “a conservative and religious poet in a radical and blasphemous age." In 1934, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book The Collected Verse of Robert Hillyer. His work is in meter and often rhyme and he tended to write about death, love and nature. He is known for his sonnets and for poems such as "Theme and Variations" (on his war experiences) and the light "Letter to Robert Frost."

He became president of the Conservative Poetry Society of America. In this capacity, he attacked modernist poets such as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.

Awards and honors

Works

Poetry

Novels

  • Riverhead (Alfred Knopf, 1932)
  • My Heart for Hostage (Random House, 1942) In 2022 this novel was digitized and made available for free download by Personville Press.

Criticism and scholarship

Editor and/or translator

Personal

In 1926, he married Dorothy Hancock Tilton. They had one son, but divorced in 1943.

He was 66 when he died in Wilmington, Delaware.

References

References

  1. (December 31, 1961). "Robert Hillyer, Pulitzer Poet". The Youngstown Vindicator.
  2. (2022-05-16). "Robert Hillyer".
  3. (2006-06-28). "Robert Hillyer". Harvard Square Library.
  4. "Biographical Sketch of Robert Hillyer". Personville Press.
  5. [https://library.udel.edu/special/findaids/view?docId=ead/mss0696.xml;tab=content#seriesi MSS 0696 - University of Delaware audio recordings of poetry readings ], accessed Feb 26 2021
  6. "Entry for Theodore Roethke". Cengage.
  7. (2021). ""Robert Hillyer" (Entry)". Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia.
  8. (1986). "Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps and American Literature of World War 1 (Dissertation)".
  9. (3 January 2024). "Book Announcement: Pre-Pulitzer Poetry". Personville Press.
  10. Hillyer, Robert. (1957). "The relic & other poems". New York, Knopf.
  11. Hillyer, Robert. (1930). "The gates of the compass : a poem in four parts together with twenty-two shorter pieces". New York : Viking Press.
  12. Hillyer, Robert. (1928). "The seventh hill". New York : Viking Press.
  13. "The Coming Forth By Day – Black's Fine Books & Manuscripts".
  14. Hillyer, Robert. (1923). "The Hills Give Promise: A Volume of Lyrics, Together with Carmus: a Symphonic Poem". B. J. Brimmer Company.
  15. Hillyer, Robert. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=7RAyAAAAIAAJ Riverhead]''. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1932. via Google Books.
  16. Hillyer, Robert, 1895-1961. ''[https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b56666 My Heart for Hostage]''. New York: Random House, 1942. via Hathi Trust.
  17. "My Heart for Hostage (Free Novel)". Personville Press.
  18. Hillyer, Robert. (1960). "In pursuit of poetry". New York, McGraw-Hill.
  19. Hillyer, Robert. (1933). "Some roots of English poetry". Norton, Mass. : Wheaton College Press.
  20. "A Tear And A Smile by Kahlil Gibran".
  21. Gibran, Kahlil. 1965. ''[http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/977393365 A tear and a smile.] Translated from Arabic by H.M. Nahmad, with an introduction by Robert Hillyer''. New York: Knopf.
  22. Damon, S. Foster, Robert Hillyer, Dorian Abbott, Norman Cabot, Grant Code, Malcolm Cowley, Jack Mereten, Joel T. Rogers, Royall H. Snow, and John Brooks. 1923. ''[http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1318413 Eight more Harvard poets]''.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

1895-births1961-deathskent-school-alumniharvard-university-alumniharvard-advocate-alumniamerican-field-service-personnel-of-world-war-i20th-century-american-poetsdanish–english-translators20th-century-american-translatorsharvard-university-facultytrinity-college-(connecticut)-facultyst.-anthony-hallpulitzer-prize-for-poetry-winnerskenyon-college-facultyuniversity-of-delaware-facultywriters-from-east-orange,-new-jersey