Jon Stallworthy


Jon Howie Stallworthy, was a British literary critic and poet. He was Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1992 to 2000, and Professor Emeritus in retirement. He was also a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, from 1986, where he was twice acting president. From 1977 to 1986, he was the John Wendell Anderson Professor of English at Cornell University.

Biography

Stallworthy was born in London. His parents, Sir John Stallworthy and Margaret Stallworthy, were from New Zealand and moved to England in 1934. Stallworthy started writing poems when he was only seven years old. He was educated at the Dragon School, Rugby School and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize. His works include seven volumes of poetry, and biographies of Wilfred Owen and Louis MacNeice. He edited several war-related anthologies and is particularly known for his critical work and editorial scholarship on Wilfred Owen and WWI poetry.
While researching the local history of New Zealand Stallworthy discovered an obscure volume entitled Early Northern Wairoa written by his great-grandfather, John Stallworthy, in 1916. From this book he learned that his great-great-grandfather, George Stallworthy, had left his birthplace of Preston Bissett in Buckinghamshire, England, for the Marquesas as a missionary. This discovery led in turn to him finding family-related letters in the archives of the London Missionary Society. Stallworthy's book A Familiar Tree is a collection of poetry inspired by events depicted in these documents. Singing School is an autobiography which emphasises Stallworthy's development as a poet, and his own published poetry has been described as having “a gift few poets possess, and which all poets wish for — the ability to strike out a memorable and epigrammatic line which is at once simple and deeply disturbing.”
Stallworthy wrote a short summary of war poetry in the introductory chapter to the Oxford Book of War Poetry, as well as editing several anthologies of war poetry and writing a biography of WWI trench poet Wilfred Owen. In 2010 he received the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award from the Wilfred Owen Association. In the course of his literary career, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy.

Published works

  • The Astronomy of Love, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Out of Bounds, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Between the Lines: W. B. Yeats's Poetry in the Making, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Yeats: Last Poems, a Casebook, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Root and Branch, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Positives, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Vision and Revision in Yeats's Last Poems, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Five Centuries of Polish Poetry, 1450–1970, by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer; 2nd edition with new poems translated in collaboration with Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Twelve, and Other Poems, by Alexander Blok; translated from Russian by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France.
  • Wilfred Owen, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Hand in Hand, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Apple Barrel, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • A Book of Love Poetry, edited by Jon Stallworthy.
  • A Familiar Tree, by Jon Stallworthy; drawings by David Gentleman.
  • Selected Poems, by Boris Pasternak; translated from Russian by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France.
  • The Complete Poems and Fragments, by Wilfred Owen; edited by Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Oxford Book of War Poetry, chosen and edited by Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Anzac Sonata: new and selected poems, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Louis MacNeice, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Guest from the Future, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Norton Anthology of Poetry, edited by Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy.
  • Rounding the Horn: Collected Poems, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Singing School: The Making of a Poet, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 2C, The Twentieth Century, edited by Jon Stallworthy; M. H. Abrams, general editor; Stephen Greenblatt, associate editor.
  • Anthem for Doomed Youth: Twelve Soldier Poets of the First World War, compiled and written by Jon Stallworthy;
  • Great Poets of World War I: poetry from the great war, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • Body Language, by Jon Stallworthy.
  • War Poet .