World Literary Awards

← Back to Home

Louise Glück

ルイーズ・グリュック

Louise Gluck

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1943-04-22 （New York City, U.S.）
Died
2023-10-13 （Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.） age 80
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Religion
Jewish (heritage)
Residence History
New York (birth and upbringing) → Montpelier, Vermont → Cambridge, Massachusetts → Berkeley, California

Career

Occupations
poet, essayist, professor
Active Years
1968-2023
Affiliations
Yale University (Frederick Iseman Professor in the Practice of Poetry), Stanford University (Professor of English), Williams College (Senior Lecturer, English), Goddard College (taught poetry)
Memberships
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (member), American Academy of Arts and Letters (member), American Philosophical Society (member), Academy of American Poets (served as Chancellor)
Influenced By
Léonie Adams, Stanley Kunitz, Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, Rainer Maria Rilke, Psychoanalysis (method/ideas)
Influenced
Subsequent generations of American poets

Education

Sarah Lawrence College
Period: 詩の授業を受講（非学位）
Country: United States
Did not obtain a degree; attended poetry classes.
Columbia University (School of General Studies, non-degree)
School of General Studies / Poetry workshops
Period: 1963–1966（非学位学生）
Country: United States
Did not complete a degree; studied with Léonie Adams and Stanley Kunitz.

Awards

Nobel Prize in Literature
2020
Organization: Swedish Academy
Result: 受賞
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1993
Work: The Wild Iris
Organization: Pulitzer Prize Board
Result: 受賞
Bollingen Prize for Poetry
2001
Organization: Bollingen Prize committee
Result: 受賞
National Book Award
2014
Work: Faithful and Virtuous Night
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 受賞
National Humanities Medal
2015
Organization: United States (National Endowment for the Humanities / Presidential award)
Result: 受賞
Wallace Stevens Award
2008
Organization: Academy of American Poets
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Triumph of Achilles

1985 poetry collection 72 pages

A poetry collection interweaving autobiographical elements and classical myth to explore loss and existence; includes notable poem "Mock Orange."

lossmythself-exploration

The Wild Iris

1992 poetry collection 80 pages

A sequence of poems featuring garden flowers, a gardener, and a deity; meditations on nature, death, and the meaning of life. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

naturedeathrenewal

Faithful and Virtuous Night

2014 poetry collection 96 pages

A late-career collection of meditations and reflections; praised for formal range and emotional depth, winner of the National Book Award.

memoryagingchanging relationships

Bibliography

  • Firstborn (1968)
  • The House on Marshland (1975)
  • Descending Figure (1980)
  • The Triumph of Achilles (1985)
  • Ararat (1990)
  • The Wild Iris (1992)
  • Meadowlands (1997)
  • Vita Nova (1999)
  • The Seven Ages (2001)
  • Averno (2006)
  • A Village Life (2009)
  • Poems: 1962–2012 (2012)
  • Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014)
  • Winter Recipes from the Collective (2021)
  • Marigold and Rose: A Fiction (2022)

Translations of Works

  • The Wild Iris (translated into multiple languages)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
lyrical precision and economyrestrained, tense voiceintrospective and symbolic imagery
Recurring Motifs
mythological motifsnature (gardens, flowers)trauma and lossisolation and recovery

Health

  • Anorexia nervosa
    十代〜若年成人期
    A defining challenge in adolescence and young adulthood; treatment and long-term psychoanalytic therapy influenced her creativity and self-understanding.

Legacy

Louise Glück is regarded as one of the major American poets of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Known for a lyrical voice that links personal experience and myth, she received honors including the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Museums

  • Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Louise Glück papers) Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut Opened in 1963

Academic Societies

  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • American Academy of Arts and Letters
  • American Philosophical Society

Archives

  • Yale Beinecke Library (manuscripts, correspondence, papers)

In Popular Culture

  • Widely anthologized (e.g. Norton Anthology of Poetry)

Quotes

  • “Her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”
    Source: Nobel Prize citation (2020) (2020)
  • “I understood that at some point I was going to die. More vividly, more viscerally, I knew I did not want to die.”
    Source: Louise Glück (essay/interview)

Trivia

  • Won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020.
  • Known for linking mythological motifs with personal experience.
  • Taught at institutions including Yale and Stanford.