Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Guy's Work
Guy Davenport was a literary critic, essayist, translator, and prose stylist.
Davenport wrote short stories that are assemblages of history and fiction. He linked the demotic gestures of American civilization with the great tradition of classical and European culture. His translations of Greek poets are noted for their scholarly acumen and poetic invention. Among his numerous collections of stories are Da Vinci’s Bicycle (1979), Apples and Pears and Other Stories (and illustrator, 1984), The Jules Verne Steam Balloon (1987), A Table of Green Fields: Ten Stories (1993), The Cardiff Team: Ten Stories (1996), and Twelve Stories (1997). His books of essays include The Geography of the Imagination (1981), Cities on Hills: A Study of I-XXX of Ezra Pound’s Cantos (1983), Every Force Evolves a Form (1987), A Balthus Notebook (1989), The Hunter Gracchus and Other Papers on Literature and Art (1996), and Objects on a Table: Harmonious Disarray in Art and Literature (1998). His translations include Archilochos, Sappho, Alkman: Three Lyric Poets of the Late Greek Bronze Age (1981) and Seven Greeks (1995).
Biography
Davenport taught literature at the University of Kentucky, after joining its faculty in 1963.
Davenport received a B.A. (1948) from Duke University, a B.Litt. (1950) from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. (1961) from Harvard University.
Last updated January 1, 2005
Published on August 1, 1990
