Babette Deutsch
Babette Deutsch was an American poet, critic, translator, and novelist.
Background
Babette Deutsch was born on September 22, 1895, in New York City. Her parents were Michael Deutsch and Melanie Fisher Deutsch. She matriculated from the Ethical Culture School and Barnard College, graduating in 1917 with a B.A. She published poems in magazines such as the North American Review and the New Republic while she was still a student at Barnard.Career
During the 1940s, 1950s and into the 1960s, Deutsch was teaching at Columbia University, where her students included poet/publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In 1946, she received an honorary D. Litt. from Columbia University.Deutsch translated Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into English and also made some of the best English versions of Boris Pasternak's poems. Deutsch's own poems displayed what poet Marianne Moore called "her commanding stature as a poet."
Personal life and death
On April 28, 1921, Deutsch married Avrahm Yarmolinsky, chief of the Slavonic Division of The New York Public Library, also a writer and translator. They had two sons, Adam and Michael.Babette Deutsch died age 87 on November 13, 1982.
Works
;Poetic collectionsBanners Honey Out of the Rock Fire for the Night Epistle to Prometheus One Part Love Take Them, Stranger Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Coming of Age: New & selected poems Collected Poems, 1919–1962 The Collected Poems of Babette Deutsch;NovelsA Brittle Heaven In Such A Night Mask of Silenus: A Novel About Socrates Rogue's Legacy: A Novel About Francois Villon
;Other worksPotable Gold: Some Notes on Poetry and This Age This Modern Poetry Walt Whitman: Builder for America The Reader's Shakespeare Poetry in Our Time Poetry Handbook Poems – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Babette Deutsch, illus. Jacques Hnizkovsky
;Translations from RussianModern Russian Poetry: an Anthology – trans. by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky Contemporary German Poetry: an Anthology – trans. by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky Eugene Onegin – Alexander Pushkin Heroes of the Kalevala – illus. Fritz Eichenberg Poems from the Book of Hours – Rainer Maria Rilke Selected Poems – Adam Mickiewicz, trans. Babetted Deutsch Two Centuries of Russian Verse – trans. Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
;Children's booksCrocodile – Korney Chukovsky, trans. Babette Deutsch It's A Secret! – illus. Dorothy Bayley The Welcome – illus. Marc Simont The Steel Flea – Nikolas Leskov, trans. Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, illus. Mstislav Dobufinsky – revised 1964, illus. by Janina DomanskaTales of Faraway Folk – trans. Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, illus. Irena Lorentowicz More Tales of Faraway Folk – trans. Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, illus. Janina Domanska
- ''I Often Wish''