Bread Loaf School of English
Encyclopedia
The Bread Loaf School of English is the graduate school of English
at Middlebury College
. The School offers graduate courses in literature, creative writing, the teaching of writing, and theater. Classes are held for six weeks each summer. The School awards two degrees. Each year, approximately 90 students earn a Master of Arts
(M.A.) and 5 or fewer students earn a Master of Letters
(M.Litt), for which an M.A. is a prerequisite. Each degree can be completed in four to five intensive summers spread over different campuses.
The School was established in 1920 at the College's mountain campus in Ripton, Vermont
near Bread Loaf Mountain
and has since expanded to campuses at Lincoln College
at the University of Oxford
, St. John's College
in New Mexico, and the University of North Carolina at Asheville
.
Around 80% of students are middle school and high school teachers. The student-to-faculty ratio is 10:1.
Poet Robert Frost
was closely involved with the first half-century of the Bread Loaf School. He purchased an 150 acre farm in the immediate vicinity, now owned by Middlebury College and known as the Robert Frost Farm, and subsequently spent more than 40 summers lecturing at the School.
, prominent faculty and staff have included William Carlos Williams
, Bernard DeVoto
, Edward Weismiller
, Theodore Roethke
, John Crowe Ransom
, Elizabeth Drew
, A. Bartlett Giamatti
, Perry Miller
, Catherine Drinker Bowen
, Carlos Baker
, Harold Bloom
, Cleanth Brooks
, Charles Edward Eaton
, Richard Ellman, Paul Muldoon
, William Sloane, John Ciardi
, John P. Marquand
, Wylie Sypher
, and Dixie Goswami.
, 12 miles (19.3 km) east of Middlebury on a plateau within sight of Bread Loaf Mountain
. Between 1860 and 1910, Joseph Battell
acquired vast tracts of land and left 31000 acres (12,545.3 ha) to Middlebury College upon his death in 1915. The College sold nearly all property to form the core of the Green Mountain National Forest
in the 1930s and 1950s, but retained the mountain campus and the rustic summer resort Battell developed. In addition to hosting the School of English and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
, the mountain campus is home to Middlebury College's Rikert Ski Touring Center during the winter months.
The campus consists of two-dozen clapboard
buildings serving as dormitories, classrooms, and social space. An additional seven cottages are located within one mile of the main campus. The Bread Loaf Inn, which now acts as a dormitory and dining hall, was built in 1861 and subsequently expanded in the Second Empire-style. The campus is known for its distinctive mustard-colored buildings dating from Battell's era; structures built since 1915 are painted white and generally of the Colonial revival-style.
The campus hosts around 250 students every summer.
Lincoln College, Oxford
opened in 1978 and enrolls 90 students. The North Carolina campus, near the Blue Ridge Mountains
, is affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Asheville
, and enrolled its first class of 50 students in 2006. The New Mexico campus at St. John's College
, Santa Fe
, has enrolled 80 students every summer since 1991.
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
at Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
. The School offers graduate courses in literature, creative writing, the teaching of writing, and theater. Classes are held for six weeks each summer. The School awards two degrees. Each year, approximately 90 students earn a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
(M.A.) and 5 or fewer students earn a Master of Letters
Master of Letters
The Master of Letters is a postgraduate degree.- United Kingdom :The MLitt is a postgraduate degree awarded by a select few British and Irish universities, predominantly within the ancient English and Scottish universities.- England :Within the English University system MLitts are not universally...
(M.Litt), for which an M.A. is a prerequisite. Each degree can be completed in four to five intensive summers spread over different campuses.
The School was established in 1920 at the College's mountain campus in Ripton, Vermont
Ripton, Vermont
Ripton is a town in Addison County, Vermont, United States. The population was 556 at the 2000 census. The Bread Loaf Writer's Conference is held annually in Ripton. Jessica Ravitz of CNN said that the town "is the kind of place where cell service fails more often than it works and the country...
near Bread Loaf Mountain
Bread Loaf Mountain (Vermont)
Bread Loaf Mountain is a mountain located in Addison County, Vermont, in the Green Mountain National Forest. The mountain is part of the central Green Mountains...
and has since expanded to campuses at Lincoln College
Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...
at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
in New Mexico, and the University of North Carolina at Asheville
University of North Carolina at Asheville
The University of North Carolina at Asheville is a co-educational, four year, public liberal arts university. The university is also known as UNC Asheville. Located in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, UNCA is the only designated liberal arts institution in the University of North...
.
Around 80% of students are middle school and high school teachers. The student-to-faculty ratio is 10:1.
Founding and History
In 1915, the first of the Middlebury Language Schools was founded. As the German School and, subsequently, other Language Schools were founded, Middlebury decided to begin a similar school for the teaching of English literature. The Bread Loaf School of English was established in 1920.Poet Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
was closely involved with the first half-century of the Bread Loaf School. He purchased an 150 acre farm in the immediate vicinity, now owned by Middlebury College and known as the Robert Frost Farm, and subsequently spent more than 40 summers lecturing at the School.
Faculty and Staff
In addition to Robert FrostRobert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
, prominent faculty and staff have included William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
, Bernard DeVoto
Bernard DeVoto
Bernard Augustine DeVoto was an American historian and author who specialized in the history of the American West.- Life and work :He was born in Ogden, Utah...
, Edward Weismiller
Edward Weismiller
Edward Ronald Weismiller was an American poet, scholar and professor of English, George Washington University. He died in Washington D.C. on August 25, 2010.-Life:He was raised in Wisconsin and Vermont...
, Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
, John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom was an American poet, essayist, magazine editor, and professor.-Life:...
, Elizabeth Drew
Elizabeth Drew
Elizabeth Drew is an American political journalist and author.- Biography :A graduate of Wellesley College, she was Washington correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker...
, A. Bartlett Giamatti
A. Bartlett Giamatti
Angelo Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti was the president of Yale University and later the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Giamatti negotiated the agreement that terminated the Pete Rose betting scandal by permitting Rose to voluntarily withdraw from the sport, avoiding further...
, Perry Miller
Perry Miller
Perry G. Miller was an American intellectual historian and Harvard University professor. He was an authority on American Puritanism, and a founder of the field of American Studies. Alfred Kazin referred to him as "the master of American intellectual history"...
, Catherine Drinker Bowen
Catherine Drinker Bowen
Catherine Drinker Bowen was born as Catherine Drinker on the Haverford College campus on January 1, 1897, to a prominent Quaker family. She was an accomplished violinist who studied for a musical career at the Peabody Institute and the Juilliard School of Music, but ultimately decided to become a...
, Carlos Baker
Carlos Baker
Carlos Baker was an American writer, biographer and former Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton University. He earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton respectively. Baker's published works included several novels and books of poetry and various literary...
, Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
, Cleanth Brooks
Cleanth Brooks
Cleanth Brooks was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education...
, Charles Edward Eaton
Charles Edward Eaton
-Life:He was born in Winston-Salem, N.C. Eaton received his B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina in 1936, studied at Princeton, and received his M.A. degree from Harvard, where he worked with Robert Frost, who later recommended him to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.Eaton served as...
, Richard Ellman, Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published over thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He held the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 - 2004. At Princeton University he is both the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor in the Humanities and...
, William Sloane, John Ciardi
John Ciardi
John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and...
, John P. Marquand
John P. Marquand
John Phillips Marquand was a American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938...
, Wylie Sypher
Wylie Sypher
Feltus Wylie Sypher was an American non-fiction writer and professor.Sypher was born in Mount Kisco, New York to Harry Wylie Sypher and Martha Berry. He graduated from Amherst College in 1927. He received a master's degree from Tufts University in 1929 and became an instructor at Simmons College....
, and Dixie Goswami.
Bread Loaf Mountain Campus
The School of English's central location is Middlebury College's 1800 acres (728.4 ha) mountain campus in Ripton, VermontRipton, Vermont
Ripton is a town in Addison County, Vermont, United States. The population was 556 at the 2000 census. The Bread Loaf Writer's Conference is held annually in Ripton. Jessica Ravitz of CNN said that the town "is the kind of place where cell service fails more often than it works and the country...
, 12 miles (19.3 km) east of Middlebury on a plateau within sight of Bread Loaf Mountain
Bread Loaf Mountain (Vermont)
Bread Loaf Mountain is a mountain located in Addison County, Vermont, in the Green Mountain National Forest. The mountain is part of the central Green Mountains...
. Between 1860 and 1910, Joseph Battell
Joseph Battell
Joseph Battell was a publisher and philanthropist from Middlebury, Vermont. Battell is credited with preserving Vermont forest land including the land for Camel's Hump State Park. Battell edited a newspaper and authored several books, including the "American Morgan Horse Registry"...
acquired vast tracts of land and left 31000 acres (12,545.3 ha) to Middlebury College upon his death in 1915. The College sold nearly all property to form the core of the Green Mountain National Forest
Green Mountain National Forest
Green Mountain National Forest is a national forest located in Vermontwhich supports a variety of wildlife, including beaver, moose, black bear, and white tailed deer. It also supports an abundant variety of bird species. The forest has been referred to as the 'granite backbone' of the state...
in the 1930s and 1950s, but retained the mountain campus and the rustic summer resort Battell developed. In addition to hosting the School of English and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont...
, the mountain campus is home to Middlebury College's Rikert Ski Touring Center during the winter months.
The campus consists of two-dozen clapboard
Clapboard (architecture)
Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...
buildings serving as dormitories, classrooms, and social space. An additional seven cottages are located within one mile of the main campus. The Bread Loaf Inn, which now acts as a dormitory and dining hall, was built in 1861 and subsequently expanded in the Second Empire-style. The campus is known for its distinctive mustard-colored buildings dating from Battell's era; structures built since 1915 are painted white and generally of the Colonial revival-style.
The campus hosts around 250 students every summer.
Other Campuses
The site at Lincoln College, OxfordLincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...
Lincoln College, Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
opened in 1978 and enrolls 90 students. The North Carolina campus, near the Blue Ridge Mountains
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southern-most...
, is affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Asheville
University of North Carolina at Asheville
The University of North Carolina at Asheville is a co-educational, four year, public liberal arts university. The university is also known as UNC Asheville. Located in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, UNCA is the only designated liberal arts institution in the University of North...
, and enrolled its first class of 50 students in 2006. The New Mexico campus at St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
, Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
, has enrolled 80 students every summer since 1991.