John Gardner papers

John Champlin Gardner (1933-1982), American novelist and short story writer, medieval English literary scholar, editor, critic, translator, librettist, poet, college professor in medieval English literature and creative writing was born on July 21, 1933, in Batavia, New York, near Buffalo. He was the eldest of four children of John Champlin Gardner, a dairy farmer and lay preacher, and Priscilla Jones Gardner, a former high school English teacher. The rural farm home was full of books, and the family frequently read aloud. Both John Sr. and Priscilla regularly offered dramatic performances at community gatherings. Gardner joined in the work of the farm, was an avid early reader, and began writing by age eight. At age eleven, a life-changing experience occurred when Gardner's younger brother Gilbert, age six, was killed when he fell beneath a cultipacker that Gardner was pulling with a tractor. The accident is described in a short story Gardner wrote later in life, "Redemption," and he referred to the accident in conversations and interviews throughout his life.

Following Batavia High School graduation in 1951, Gardner began his college education at DePauw University. He planned to major in chemistry, but he was drawn to literature and philosophy. In his sophomore year Gardner contributed the prize-winning story and song lyrics for DePauw's annual musical comedy. Beginning his junior year, Gardner transferred to Washington University after marrying his St. Louis cousin, Joan Louise Patterson in June 1953. At Washington, Gardner wrote a short story that was published as "Nickel Mountain" in the student literary magazine he co-edited. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and used his Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to pursue an M.A. degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa and continued on in Iowa's English Ph.D. program. Gardner studied old and medieval English language and literature under Professor John C. McGalliard. For his dissertation Gardner submitted a novel, The Old Men, and received his doctorate in 1958.

Gardner's first teaching position was a one-year appointment at Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1958. In 1959 he moved on to Chico State College (now the University of California at Chico). During his Chico years Gardner's two children were born -- Joel, in 1959, and Lucy, in 1962. While teaching a variety of four courses per semester, Gardner served as a leading force in establishing Chico's Creative Writing Program and briefly supervised the student literary magazine but was stifled by the college's attempts to censor the publication. In 1961 Gardner launched his own professional literary magazine, MSS, which -- despite its short run of three issues -- achieved early prominence by publishing a notable array of works by a mix of both young and established writers including William Gass, John Hawkes, Joyce Carol Oates, W.S. Merwin, George P. Elliott, and William Stafford. Gardner's Chico years also saw his first published story, "A Little Night Music," in a literary magazine, Northwest Review, and his publication with colleague Lennis Dunlap of The Forms of Fiction, an anthology of short and longer fiction with comments for use in writing and literature courses. The selections together with critical introductions, analyses and questions provide one of the earliest glimpses of Gardner's developing concept of good fiction as expressing moral values. Random House reprinted it six times over the next five years.

It was Gardner's continuing scholarship in medieval literature that won him a tenure-track position as assistant professor at San Francisco State University in 1962. While teaching four courses each semester, Gardner continued to focus his scholarship on medieval English literature and in 1965 published The Complete Works of the Gawain Poet: in a Modern English Version to very favorable reviews.

In tandem with additional related scholarly translations and writings in progress, Gardner continued his writing of fiction and other creative works, sometimes drawing on classical or old or middle English themes and often combining fantasy with reality. Early in his next teaching post , beginning in September 1965, as Associate Professor in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Literature, Southern Illinois University, Gardner published his first novel, The Resurrection (1966) to mixed reviews, followed by The Wreckage of Agathon (1970). His 1971 novel Grendel, a reimagining of the Beowulf story from the perspective of the monster, received wide favorable acclaim and brought him name recognition. Also appearing in 1971 was Gardner's translation and edition: The Alliterative Morte Arthure; The Owl and the Nightingale; and Five Other Middle English Poems. The Sunlight Dialogues, considered by many his finest novel, appeared in 1972; Throughout his Southern Illinois professorship which extended to mid-1976, Gardner typically pursued several writing projects simultaneously, alternating between his medieval studies scholarship and his creative work. He won recognition and respect in both arenas and came to be seen as one of America's most prolific and imaginative writers.

With support from a 1973-74 Guggenheim Fellowship, Gardner made progress in his scholarly studies and creative writing. Both his epic poem Jason and Medeia and his next novel, Nickel Mountain, appeared in 1973. Gardner's 1974 The Construction of the Wakefield Cycle featured a careful analysis of the individual pageants together with Gardner's comments about the authorship of the whole. Toward year's end, Gardner's The King's Indian; Stories and Tales appeared.

Summer 1974 was Gardner's first year as faculty at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. From the outset Gardner became a favorite, and he returned for eight subsequent years. His classes, readings, lively exchanges with students and faculty colleagues, and his generous critiquing of student writing -- all gave him a following that extended well beyond the Conference.

Between 1974 and 1978, Gardner resigned from SIU and held successive teaching appointments at Bennington, Skidmore, and Williams colleges, and George Mason University. His 1976 separation from wife Joan eventually led to divorce.

In 1975 Gardner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His Dragon, Dragon and Other Tales was selected as "The New York Times Outstanding Book for Children 1975." Gardner's novel October Light won the 1976 National Book Critics Award for Fiction. Another collection for children, Gudgekin the Thistle Girl and Other Tales came out in 1976. He wrote the libretto for Rumpelstiltskin as an opera, with music by Joseph Baber, and it was first performed in January 1977. Also appearing in 1977 were Gardner's third collection of tales for children, King of the Hummingbirds, and his The Life and Times of Chaucer, The Poetry of Chaucer, and two more children's books -- In the Suicide Mountains and A Child's Bestiary. Towards the end of 1977, while recovering from cancer surgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Gardner drafted a guide to the writing of fiction which he entitled, "The Art of Fiction."

With On Moral Fiction (1978), Gardner offered a book-length discussion of his long-held views developed from his college reading of Tolstoy's What Is Art? -- that true art is moral art and offers a "careful, thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values." Gardner argued that good fiction expressed values that affirm what is good for characters in particular and for humanity in general. Gardner's choice to name specific contemporary writers as examples in his argument thrust him into the national spotlight amidst a controversy whose vehemence and duration he had not counted on. Many subsequent interviews and reviews of his work specifically referred to his On Moral Fiction and used it as a measure of Gardner's own work.

In Fall 1978 Gardner began directing the creative writing program at State University of New York at Binghamton. Also, his Poems was published. 1979 saw publication of two more opera libretti -- Frankenstein and William Wilson, and the tale, Vlemk the Box Painter.

In 1980 Gardner married Liz Rosenberg and together they edited MSS: A Retrospective, preliminary to the 1981 revival of MSS as a venue for new writers. Also coming out in those years were Gardner's novel Freddy's Book (1980), a radio play entitled The Temptation Game (1980), a play entitled Death and the Maiden (1981), and The Art of Living and Other Stories (1981).

In 1982 Gardner edited (with Shannon Ravenel) Houghton Mifflin's The Best American Short Stories: 1982. His novel Mickelsson's Ghosts appeared. He divorced Liz Rosenberg. Days before his planned wedding to Susan Thornton, Gardner was killed, at age 49, on 14 September, in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash on a rural road near Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.

Weeks before his death Gardner had completed his collaborative work on a new translation of the centuries-old epic Gilgamesh, with Gardner rendering into poetry accessible to lay readers the literal English translation from the original Akkadian by Professor John Maier, with assistance from Assyriologist Richard Henshaw. Gilgamesh appeared in 1984, as did Gardner's The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. Also in the weeks before his death, Gardner brought together in his On Becoming a Novelist (posthumously published in 1983) his personal observations, for the beginning novelist, as to the promising writer's sensibilities, training and education, and he offers practical tips for surviving with writing as a vocation earning livelihood.

In his last interview, conducted by David Stanton at the Bread Loaf Conference, August 1982, John Gardner acknowledged that one of his aspirations was to be "the world's greatest librettist". This biography takes note, therefore, that in Summer 2006 Gardner's novel Grendel was produced as an opera, with Julie Taymor as director and Taymor and J.D. McClatchy as co-librettists. They drew heavily from Gardner's novel. The opera was premiered at the LA Opera Company in June 2006 and in July 2006 at New York's Lincoln Center. By Fall 2006 there were discussions of a possible LA revival in 2007.

Bibliography

Howell, John M. John Gardner; A Bibliographical Profile. With an Afterword by John Gardner. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980. [Rare Books/Special Collections, Cominsky Room, PS3557/.G217Zah]

Hamilton, Lee T. "John Gardner: A Bibliographical Update." John Gardner: True Art, Moral Art. Ed. Beatrice Mendez-Egle. Edinburg, Texas: School of Humanities, Pan American University, 1983. [ Rare Books/Special Collections, Gardner PS3557/.A712/ Z725/1983]

Howell, John M. Understanding John Gardner. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1993. See "Bibliography," pp. 151-161. [Rare Books/Special Collections, Gardner PS3557/.A712/Z69/1993]