Fairleigh Dickinson University Press William Ellery Leonard: The Professor and the Locomotive-God

William Ellery Leonard was an eccentric poet, professor, and critic whose romantic ideals were set against a world whose aesthetics were fast turning away from his own. He lived a life marked by both success and dramatic failure, both personally and professionally. His first wife's suicide would haunt him and mark one of his greatest poems, the sonnet sequence Two Lives; his translations of Lucretius and Beowulf stood as hallmarks of the craft for decades after they were published; and his political satires written in response to the University sphere he lived and worked in remain as effective today as they once were. Review William Ellery Leonard was an eccentric poet and professor and critic who produced poems based on his life experiences and whose translations of Lucretius and Beowulf became accepted classics of literature: it's fitting that a biography of his life and works should incorporate the influences that molded his literary expertise. College-level students of his works will find this an outstanding critical coverage adding much to any collection in 20th-century literary figures, with chapters offering footnotes of reference, plenty of analysis of his works with liberal quotes throughout, and all the tools needed to understand Leonard's ongoing influence.-- "Bookwatch" About the Author Neale Reinitz (1923–2012) was Professor Emeritus of English at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, where he taught English literature.