RICHARD P. WILBUR

RICHARD P. WILBUR, the eminent poet and former Olin Professor of English, died Oct. 14, 2017, at age 96. He joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1957 and taught until 1977. During his two decades at Wesleyan he received the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Things of This World, was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and founded the renowned Wesleyan University Press poetry series. Wesleyan awarded him an honorary degree in 1977. During his long and distinguished career as a poet and translator, he was appointed as national poet laureate, received two Pulitzer Prizes, a National Medal of the Arts, two Guggenheim fellowships, the T.S. Eliot Award, and the Frost Medal, among others. He was known for his classical rhyme and meter, as well as for his translations of Molière, Racine, Baudelaire, and Joseph Brodsky. He also wrote most of the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s opera Candide. Born in New York City, he graduated from high school in Montclair, N.J., and received a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1942, before enlisting in the U.S. Army. He served in Africa, southern France, and Italy during World War II, an experience that he said led him to “versify in earnest.” After graduating from Harvard University with a master’s degree in 1947, he worked for many years as an English professor while continuing to write, translate, and publish. In 1961, he was named chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, a position he held for more than 30 years. His wife, Charlotte Ward Wilbur, died in 2007. Four children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren survive.