SOURCE: Humphrey, Robert. “Randall Jarrell's Poetry.” In Themes and Directions in American Literature: Essays in Honor of Leon Howard, edited by Ray B. Browne and Donald Pizer, pp. 220-33. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Studies, 1969.

In the following essay, Humphrey regards Jarrell as a greatly under appreciated poet of the mid-twentieth century.

Although “literary history is ruthless toward the unsuccessful,”¹ we have to grapple with the paradox that literary history, and the critics who write it, give us the understanding and perspective with which we determine literary success. Very recent writers who may deserve some space in future literary histories may be judged failures simply because critics were too late in transmitting their understanding. This is a greater risk nowadays than at any time previously—especially with American poets—since there have been many very good ones in the past thirty or forty years.

The significance of Randall Jarrell's...