John Berryman

John Berryman (1914–1972) was an American poet and literary scholar, best known for The Dream Songs, a sequence blending comic performance, grief, and fractured identity.

The Dream Songs: A sequence of 385 poems by John Berryman, published in two volumes between 1964 and 1968. This sequence made Berryman’s shifting, theatrical voice his defining achievement.
Henry (The Dream Songs character): The recurring, partly autobiographical protagonist of John Berryman’s The Dream Songs. Henry gives Berryman a mask through which to stage personal conflict.
Edmund Wilson: An American literary critic and editor whose criticism shaped twentieth-century literary culture. Wilson was Berryman’s mentor and helped advance his early literary career.
John Donne: An English poet and Anglican cleric known for intellectually intricate metaphysical poetry. Berryman’s scholarship and poetic practice engaged closely with Donne’s wit and argument.
Mid-century American poetry: American poetry written around the middle decades of the twentieth century, marked by diverse formal and cultural movements. Berryman’s work helped define the era’s competing turns toward confession and experiment.
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet: John Berryman’s long poem, published in 1956, that addresses the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet. Its historical speaker and demanding form anticipate the masks of The Dream Songs.
Dramatic monologue: A poem spoken by an invented or historical speaker whose words reveal character and situation. Berryman uses performed speakers to make confession indirect and unstable.
Mark Van Doren: An American poet and critic who taught literature at Columbia University for decades. Van Doren taught Berryman at Columbia and remained an influential early mentor.
W. B. Yeats: An Irish poet whose evolving styles and constructed public persona shaped modern poetry. Yeats offered Berryman a model for transforming personal history into poetic myth.
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: An annual American literary award for a distinguished volume of poetry by an American author. Berryman received the 1965 prize for 77 Dream Songs.

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