Wallace Fowlie

Wallace Fowlie (1908–1998) was an American writer and professor of literature. He was the James B. Duke Professor of French Literature at Duke University where he taught from 1964 to the end of his career. Although he published more than twenty books, he was devoted to teaching, particularly undergraduate courses in French, Italian, and modernist literature. He took his A.B. at Harvard College in 1930 followed by a Master's in 1933 and a Ph.D. in 1936, also at Harvard. Before coming to Duke in 1964, he taught at Bennington College, University of Chicago, and Yale University.

Fowlie was also noted for his correspondence with literary figures such as Henry Miller, René Char, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Saint-John Perse, Marianne Moore, and Anaïs Nin. He is best known for his translations of Arthur Rimbaud, which were appreciated by a younger generation that included Jim Morrison (whose work Fowlie also became a scholar of) and Patti Smith. In 1990, Fowlie consulted with director Oliver Stone on the film The Doors. Probably his best-known student is another writer and critic of French literature, Roger Shattuck. He published book after book on the great French writers he revered, including Mallarmé and Rimbaud. He was the first translator of Rimbaud in English: his Rimbaud, Complete Works, Selected Letters appeared in 1966. This work aligned him with his friend Henry Miller, whose work he championed, and brought Rimbaud to a new generation of fans — and with it the acknowledgment and gratitude of rock stars Patti Smith and Jim Morrison. Morrison wrote Fowlie a letter which he forgot about until his students played him the music of the Doors. He quickly recognized Rimbaud's influence in the lyrics. Then he remembered and retrieved the letter. As an octogenarian, he published Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel As Poet.

Works Age of Surrealism (1950) André Gide: His Life and Art (1965) Aubade: A Teacher's Notebook (1983) Characters from Proust: Poems (1983) Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems from "Flowers of Evil" (1963) Claudel (Studies in Modern European Literature and Thought) (1957) Climate of Violence: The French Literary Tradition from Baudelaire to the Present (1967) Clowns And Angels: Studies In Modern French Literature (1943) The Clown's Grail: A Study of Love in Its Literary Expression (1947) De Villon à Péguy (Editions de l'Arbre, Montreal, 1944) Dionysus in Paris: A Guide to Contemporary French Theater (1960) Ernest Psichari (Ernest Green & Co., New York, Toronto, 1939) From Chartered Land (William R Scott, New York, 1938) Jacob’s Night: The Religious Renascence in France, New York, (1947) Jean Cocteau: The History of a Poet's Age (1966) Journal of Rehearsals: A Memoir (1997) Intervalles (A. Magne, Paris, 1939, published under pen name Michel Wallace) La Pureté dans l'Art (Editions de l'Arbre, Montreal, 1941) Lautréamont (Twayne, New York, 1973) Letters of Henry Miller and Wallace Fowlie (1975) Mallarmé (Dennis Dobson, London; University of Chicago, Chicago, 1953) Matines et Vers (Paris, 1936; published under pen name Michel Wallace) Memory: A Fourth Memoir (1990) Poem and Symbol: A Brief History of French Symbolism (1990) A Reading of Dante's Inferno (1981) Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters (1966) . (Revised, 2005, ) Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel as Poet (1994) Rimbaud's Illuminations, A Study in Angelism (1953) Rimbaud, the Myth of Childhood (1946) Sites: A Third Memoir (1986) Sleep of the Pigeon (1948) The Spirit of France: Studies in Modern French Literature (Sheed & Ward, London, 1945) Stendhal (1969)