John Thomas Irwin (April 24, 1940 – December 20, 2019) was an American poet and literary critic. He was the Decker Professor in the Humanities and Professor in The Writing Seminars and the English Department at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

Background

Irwin was born in

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, and received his bachelor's degree in English at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Following a stint in the US Navy, he received his

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in English from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor in the English department at Johns Hopkins University in 1970, but left Johns Hopkins in 1974 to become the editor of ''The Georgia Review'' at the

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

. Dr. Irwin returned to Johns Hopkins to become professor and chair of The Writing Seminars department. After that, he accepted a joint appointment in the English department and received an endowed chair, the Decker Professorship in the Humanities, in 1984.

Publications

Irwin's first book of

literary criticism A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...

, ''Doubling and Incest/Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Reading of Faulkner'', was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1975. This was followed by his first book of

poem Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

s, ''The Heisenberg Variations'', under his pen name John Bricuth, published by the University of Georgia Press in 1976. In 1980 he published his second book of literary criticism and scholarship, ''American Hieroglyphics: The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the American Renaissance'', with the Yale University Press, and in 1994 he published his third book of criticism, ''Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges. and the Analytical Detective Story'', with the

Johns Hopkins University Press Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...

. The latter book won the Christian Gauss Prize from

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

for the best scholarly book in the humanities published in 1994 and also won the Aldo Scaglione Prize in comparative literature from the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "str ...

for the best scholarly book published in the field of comparative literature that year. His latest book, a narrative poem published by Johns Hopkins University press in 2005, is titled, ''As Long As It's Big''.

Chess

Irwin was a noted chess aficionado, with a "prodigious memory for chess." The US national senior chess championship is named in his honor.

Partial bibliography

Academic *''Doubling and Incest/Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Reading of Faulkner'' (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). *''American Hieroglyphics: The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the American Renaissance'' (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980). *''The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytical Detective Story'' (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). *''Unless the Threat of Death Is Behind Them: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir'' (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). *''Hart Crane's Poetry: Appollinaire Lived in Paris, I Live in Cleveland, Ohio'' (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). *''F. Scott Fitzgerald's Fiction: An Almost Theatrical Innocence'' (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). Reviews *T. Irwin, John T., "The Crisis of Regular Forms" [Review of ''On the Edge of the Knife'' by Charles Edward Eaton; ''Birth and Copulation and Death'' by Harry Morris; ''Coat on a Stick'' by Rolfe Humphries; ''The Geography of Lograire'' by Thomas Merton; ''New and Selected Poems'' by David Wagoner; ''The World Before Us: Poems 1950-70'' by Theodore Weiss], ''The Sewanee Review'', Vol. 81, No. 1 (Winter, 1973), pp. 158–171. Poetry *Irwin, John T. (as John Bricuth), ''The Heisenberg Variations'' (Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1976). *Irwin, John T. (as John Bricuth), ''Just Let Me Say This About That,'' Sewanee Writers' Series (New York: Overlook Press, 1998). *Irwin, John T. (Ed.), ''Words Brushed by Music: Twenty-Five Years of the Johns Hopkins Poetry Series (Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction'', Foreword by Anthony Hecht (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). *Irwin, John T. (as John Bricuth), ''As Long As It's Big: A Narrative Poem'' (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, John 1940 births 2019 deaths American academics of English literature University of St. Thomas (Texas) alumni Rice University alumni University of Georgia faculty Johns Hopkins University faculty Edgar Allan Poe scholars American male non-fiction writers