R. W. B. Lewis

For other people named Richard Lewis, seeRichard Lewis (disambiguation).

Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis(November 1, 1917 - June 13, 2002) was an American literary scholar and critic. He gained a wider reputation when he won a 1976Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography,the firstNational Book Critics Circle Awardfor nonfiction, and aBancroft Prizefor his biography ofEdith Wharton.The New York Timescalled the book "a beautifully wrought, rounded portrait of the whole woman, including the part of her that remained in shade during her life" and said that the "expansive, elegant biography... can stand as literature, if nothing else."

He was the Neil Gray Professor of English and American Studies atYale University,where he taught from 1959 until his retirement in 1988; from 1966 to 1972, he was master of Yale'sCalhoun College.From 1954 to 1959 he taught atRutgers–Newark.In 1988 Lewis received a Litt.D. fromBates College.A member of theAmerican Academy of Arts & Sciences,Lewis received its Gold Medal for Biography in 2000.

Lewis is generally considered one of the founders of the academic field ofAmerican Studies.His interests ranged from criticism of American and European writers to biography and artistic criticism. He is associated withJohn William Ward.

Lewis' career as critic involved him in the lives of many influential American and European thinkers and writers. Lewis received his doctoral degree from theUniversity of Chicago,where he studied underNorman Maclean,author of the novelA River Runs Through It and Other Stories.He and his wife and sometime co-author Nancy later became close friends with Southern writerRobert Penn Warren.

Lewis' first major workThe American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century(1955) exploredDe Crèvecoeur's idea of the American as a "new man" - an innocent Adam in a bright new world dissociating himself from the historic past. Lewis portrayed this preoccupation as a pervasive, transforming ingredient of the American mind that shaped the consciousness of lesser thinkers as fully as it shaped the giants of the age. The book traces the Adamic theme in the writings ofRalph Waldo Emerson,Henry David Thoreau,Hawthorne,Herman Melville,Henry Jamesand others, and in his epilogue Lewis exposes its continuing spirit in the works ofF. Scott Fitzgerald,William Faulkner,Ralph Ellison,J. D. Salinger,andSaul Bellow.

Life and career

Lewis was born inChicago, Illinois,the son of Beatrix Elizabeth (Baldwin) and Leicester Crosby Lewis, an Episcopal minister.After preparing at Episcopal Academy andPhillips Exeter Academy,he earned his B.A. in 1939 atHarvard Universityand his M.A. in 1941 at theUniversity of Chicago,where he also received a Ph.D. degree in 1954.In the meantime he volunteered for war service in 1942, enlisting as a private in the U.S. Air Force and becoming a second lieutenant, serving in the Middle East, North Africa, and Italy, commanding a unit inTuscany, Italy,serving in the British-U.S. intelligence service known as "M.I. X" and receiving theLegion of Merit Awardin 1944 for service behind enemy lines, After the war, he continued as a commanding officer of theNorthern Italy War Crimes Investigation Teamand was discharged from service in 1946 with the rank of major.

After returning from the war Lewis pursued his fascination with world literature, which was already awakened by his Harvard teachers. He also developed a lifelong fascination and love for Italy after visiting as a child, and serving there in the war. He and his wife Nancy visited there regularly for much of their lives, and Lewis later wrote a book on the city ofFlorence.

Lewis taught atBennington College1948–1950, and was dean of studies at theSalzburg Seminarin Austria 1950–1951. He was a visiting lecturer atSmith College1951-1952 and a resident fellow atPrinceton Universityin 1952–1954, then joined the faculty atRutgers Universityas a professor of English until hisYale Universityappointment in 1959. In 1977 he was appointed theNeil Gray, Jr. Professor of English and American Studies,reflecting his abiding interest in American literature and American cultural life.

Honors

Lewis received numerous honors for his research and contributions, including a grant for literary achievement from theNational Institute of Arts and Letters,anAmerican Council of Learned SocietiesFellowship, plus honorary degrees from several universities. He was invited to serve on both theNational Book Awardjury for fiction, on which he was charged with selecting the best novel of 1964, and on the 1977 jury for biography and autobiography. In 1988 he was one of 14 scholars chosen to advise theNational Endowment for the Humanitieson the state of American culture.

While teaching at Yale, Lewis lived in a house inBethany, Connecticut.He worked in an octagonally-shaped writing studio situated in a ravine about 30 feet from his house. A railed walkway connected the house to the studio, which was built by Nancy Lewis' brother-in-lawIsham McConnell,who studied under the American architectFrank Lloyd Wright.Lewis continued to write his books on a typewriter into his later years.

Bookshelves lined the walls of Lewis' office, with each section containing works from Lewis' various areas of research: the James' family, Edith Wharton,Danteand Italy,American literature,etc.

In 2006 theYale College Writing Centerwas endowed with a directorship in Lewis' name.

"This position in Dick Lewis’ name will serve as a permanent tribute to a writer who made every subject he engaged in memorable and to a memorable teacher who made every student mindful of great writing,” said Yale PresidentRichard C. Levinin a university press release.

Personal life

Lewis married Nancy Lindau in 1950. They had three children: Nathaniel (born 1960), who is also a literary historian atSaint Michael's College;Sophie (born 1965), a health expert with the government of Massachusetts; and Emma (born 1967), an environmental lawyer. Lewis also had a son by the Danish writerElsa Gress,the historianDavid Gress.

Lewis died inBethany, Connecticut.

Works written

• The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century(1955)
• The Picaresque Saint. Representative Figures in Contemporary Fiction(1959)
• Herman Melville(1962)
• Trials of the Word: Essays in American Literature and the Humanistic Tradition(1965)
• The Poetry ofHart Crane:A Critical Study(1967)
• American Literature: The Makers and the Making: Book C / 1861 to 1914(1974, withCleanth BrooksandRobert Penn Warren)
• Edith Wharton: A Biography(1975)
• The Jameses: A Family Narrative(1991)
• Literary Reflections: A Shoring of Images 1960-1993(1993)
• The City of Florence: Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings(1995)
• American Characters: Selections from the National Portrait Gallery, Accompanied by Literary Portraits(1999, with Nancy Lewis)
• Dante(2001)

Works edited

• Presence of Walt Whitman(1962)
• Malraux: A Collection of Critical Essays(1964)
• The Letters of Edith Wharton(1989, with Nancy Lewis)
• The Selected Short Stories of Edith Wharton(1991)

Further reading

• Ward, John William1955.Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age.New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ward, John William.1969Red, White, and Blue: Men, Books, and Ideas in American Culture.New York: Oxford University Press
• Marx, Leo.1964.The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America.New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ward, David C.2004Charles Willson Peale: Art and Selfhood in the Early RepublicBerkeley, California: University of California Press
• Smith, Henry Nash.1950.Virgin Land; the American West as Symbol and Myth.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Matthiessen, F. O.1949.American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman.Harvard, Boston
• Meyers, Marvin 1957The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and BeliefStanford Press, California
• Hofstadter, Richard.1955.The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R.

External links

• Eric Homberger,"RWB Lewis" (obituary),The Guardian,June 19, 2002.