Jarrell, Randall (1914–1965)

US poet and literary critic. His war poems attracted national attention in the 1940s; The Woman at the Washington Zoo 1960 won a National Book Award. Poetry and the Age 1953, a reevaluation of modern US poets, established Jarrell as a critic with unfailing judgment and a witty style, while his one novel Pictures from an Institution 1954, is regarded as a minor classic of the academic-novel genre.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he studied at Vanderbilt University. He served with the Army Air Corps 1942–46. For most of his career he taught at the University of North Carolina 1947–51, 1953–54, 1961–65. He was consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress 1956–58. He died as a result of a car accident.