Diane Middlebrook
Encyclopedia
Diane Helen Wood Middlebrook (April 16, 1939 – December 15, 2007) was an American
biographer
, poet
, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University
. She is best known for critically acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton
and Sylvia Plath
(along with Plath's husband Ted Hughes
), and jazz musician Billy Tipton
. Middlebrook was preparing a biography of the Roman poet Ovid
, to be published in 2008. Her death brought that project to a close.
Middlebrook held no illusions about the difficulties facing a biographer. In an interview on her professional life, she said "With a biography there is no straight line; all is muddled. You don't know what you know, you don't know what you don't know; if you find anything you make a note about it because some day it may find its partner. You have to have very good ways of keeping track of what you have found and where you have put it."
, the oldest of three daughters, born to teenage parents. In 1945 the family moved to Spokane, Washington
.
in Walla Walla, Washington
, then transferred to the University of Washington
in Seattle. She received a Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1961. She entered Stanford University
as an assistant professor of English in 1966, then obtained a Ph.D.
from Yale University
in 1968. Her doctoral dissertation was a combined study of American poet Wallace Stevens
and American philosopher/essayist Walt Whitman
; her doctoral advisor was the noted American writer and literary critic Harold Bloom
.
Middlebrook began her teaching career at Stanford as an assistant professor in 1966 and gradually worked her way up to university professor and associate dean positions. She won a number of fellowships, grants, and awards along the way. She resigned from Stanford in 2002 to concentrate fully on her writing. By this time, she was already a professor emerita.
Middlebrook had not concentrated on feminist studies when she was tapped for Stanford’s new Center for Research on Women (eventually to become the Clayman Institute for Gender Research), one of the first such centers in the nation in the 1970s. She once stated that her chief qualifications were her sex and her availability. She directed the Center from 1977 to 1979. She was noted for her diversity of study subjects; one syllabus from that era lists both Ovid
and Queen Latifah
.
Middlebrook received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the Stanford Humanities Center, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Study Center of Bellagio. She was a founding trustee of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, an interdisciplinary arts center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She was chair of Stanford’s Feminist Studies Program from 1985-88.
Middlebrook received two honors from Stanford for her teaching effort. In 1977 she was given The Dean's Award; in 1987 she was given the Walter J. Gores Award. She also received the Richard W. Lyman service award.
as a subject for a biography, she said, No estates, no psychotherapy, no interviews, no history—I just make it up. She noted that the historical record of Ovid's life is scanty, so a biographer must read the person from the person's literary output - all we know is in his poetry; the biographer is forced to rely on the text itself.
Middlebrook’s debut as a biographer was almost accidental: on her 41st birthday, she received an invitation from the Sexton estate to write a biography of confessional poet Anne Sexton
. The resulting effort, Anne Sexton: A Biography spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, which is unusual for a biography of a minor poet. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the National Book Critics Circle Award; it was awarded a gold medal in nonfiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Joyce Carol Oates
called the book “sympathetic but resolutely unsentimental ... intelligent, sensitive, at times harrowing.” The book was somewhat controversial, as Middlebrook was given access to (and freely used) some 300 hours of Sexton's sessions with psychiatrist
s.
Suits Me was a finalist for a Lambda Foundation Literary Award and a bestselling biography of Billy Tipton
, a female jazz musician who lived an entire professional and private life as a man. He/she married (five times) and had children (who were adopted). The wives, and everyone else, were unaware of the disguise. (Said one of his sons, “He’ll always be Dad to me.”) London’s Financial Times wrote, “Tipton may have spent his life fearing exposure, but he/she could not have wished for a more perceptive or sympathetic biographer than Middlebrook.”
Her Husband was a bestseller. It was a 2004 finalist for the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award in non-fiction. In 2006 the French translation won the Prix Du Meilleur Livre Etranger. The New York Times called the book “inspiring,” “attentive and clear-eyed.”
Middlebrook was noted for her openness and honest, sometimes "brutal" biographical writing. The more that each of us knows about each of the other human beings in the world, the better off [we] are. It’s true that it is very painful to be exposed to people’s curiosity. But it’s painful in a way that can only lead to self-knowledge, because it’s really not a big deal. In the scope of human endeavor, it’s not a big deal.
After the book on Stevens and Whitman, Middlebrook wrote or edited three books on poetry: Worlds Into Words: Understanding Modern Poems (1980), Coming to Light: American Women Poets in the 20th Century (1985), and Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (1988). She also wrote her own book of poetry, Gin Considered as a Demon (1983). The edition of Anne Sexton's poetry helped lead to what can be described as Middlebrook's big break: her book Anne Sexton, A Biography published in 1991.
The Sexton biography became a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award
. An intriguing blend of traditional biography, psychiatric
study, and literary criticism
, the book was written in an infectious, non-pedantic style that attracted a wide range of readers.
Middlebrook then took an interesting detour from her study of poetry and poets in her next book, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton (1998). The story of a jazz musician who was born a woman but lived for over fifty years as a man, the book also sold well and showed that Middlebrook could range outside the traditional purview of the English Department.
The Sexton biography might have led inevitably to Middlebrook's book about Anne Sexton's friend and fellow-suicide, Sylvia Plath. Published as Her Husband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath, a Marriage in 2003, the biography steered a sensible and convincing course between partisan views of the two poets. Publishers Weekly
called it the "gold standard" of the many books published about the couple, and it became a Los Angeles Times
bestseller.
Besides her books, Middlebrook published many articles on Sexton, Plath, Hughes, and other writers, such as Robert Lowell
and Philip Larkin
. She also reviewed a wide variety of books on subjects ranging from Helen Keller
to the development of modern clothing
. She said that her planned book on Ovid
was an attempt to get inside a subject who "exists only in his texts."
, Middlebrook spent the last 28 years of her life with her third husband, Carl Djerassi
, a Viennese
-born American scientist who helped invent the first contraceptive pill. Her first two marriages, to Michael Shough and Jonathan Middlebrook, were annulled. Middlebrook's experience with her two divorces was something that, in her own words, "rips your soul out of your body".
The second marriage gave her the name under which she established her literary reputation (Middlebrook). From that matrimony one child was born. Leah Middlebrook followed her illustrious mother's example, and taught Comparative Literature and Romance Languages.
In 1977 Middlebrook began a relationship with noted scientist Carl Djerassi
. They were married in 1985, and remained married until her death.
Middlebrook retired in 2002, and convinced Djerassi to also take retirement that year. She then concentrated more fully on her research, and she and Djerassi divided their time between their residences in San Francisco and London
.
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
biographer
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
, poet
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. She is best known for critically acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
and Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
(along with Plath's husband Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...
), and jazz musician Billy Tipton
Billy Tipton
Billy Lee Tipton was an American jazz musician and bandleader. Born Dorothy Tipton, he also notable for the discovery, after his death, that he was female assigned at birth.- Early life :...
. Middlebrook was preparing a biography of the Roman poet Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
, to be published in 2008. Her death brought that project to a close.
Middlebrook held no illusions about the difficulties facing a biographer. In an interview on her professional life, she said "With a biography there is no straight line; all is muddled. You don't know what you know, you don't know what you don't know; if you find anything you make a note about it because some day it may find its partner. You have to have very good ways of keeping track of what you have found and where you have put it."
Biography
Middlebrook was born Diane Helen Wood, in Pocatello, IdahoPocatello, Idaho
Pocatello is the county seat and largest city of Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock...
, the oldest of three daughters, born to teenage parents. In 1945 the family moved to Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
.
Education and teaching career
Middlebrook expressed her desire to become a published poet and writer, but was not encouraged by her family. She paid her own way through college. She entered Whitman CollegeWhitman College
Whitman College is a private, co-educational, non-sectarian, residential undergraduate liberal arts college located in Walla Walla, Washington. Initially founded as a seminary by a territorial legislative charter in 1859, the school became a four year degree granting institution in 1883...
in Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla is the largest city in and the county seat of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. The population was 31,731 at the 2010 census...
, then transferred to the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
in Seattle. She received a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in 1961. She entered Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
as an assistant professor of English in 1966, then obtained a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1968. Her doctoral dissertation was a combined study of American poet Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
and American philosopher/essayist Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
; her doctoral advisor was the noted American writer and literary critic 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...
.
Middlebrook began her teaching career at Stanford as an assistant professor in 1966 and gradually worked her way up to university professor and associate dean positions. She won a number of fellowships, grants, and awards along the way. She resigned from Stanford in 2002 to concentrate fully on her writing. By this time, she was already a professor emerita.
Middlebrook had not concentrated on feminist studies when she was tapped for Stanford’s new Center for Research on Women (eventually to become the Clayman Institute for Gender Research), one of the first such centers in the nation in the 1970s. She once stated that her chief qualifications were her sex and her availability. She directed the Center from 1977 to 1979. She was noted for her diversity of study subjects; one syllabus from that era lists both Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
and Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens , better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy...
.
Middlebrook received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the Stanford Humanities Center, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Study Center of Bellagio. She was a founding trustee of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, an interdisciplinary arts center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She was chair of Stanford’s Feminist Studies Program from 1985-88.
Middlebrook received two honors from Stanford for her teaching effort. In 1977 she was given The Dean's Award; in 1987 she was given the Walter J. Gores Award. She also received the Richard W. Lyman service award.
Middlebrook's work as a biographer
Middlebrook once stated why she preferred preparing biographic work to other fields of study: One of the reasons I like working on biographies is that it takes a long time, you don’t have to work quickly. People are going to stay dead. When asked why she had picked OvidOvid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
as a subject for a biography, she said, No estates, no psychotherapy, no interviews, no history—I just make it up. She noted that the historical record of Ovid's life is scanty, so a biographer must read the person from the person's literary output - all we know is in his poetry; the biographer is forced to rely on the text itself.
Middlebrook’s debut as a biographer was almost accidental: on her 41st birthday, she received an invitation from the Sexton estate to write a biography of confessional poet Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
. The resulting effort, Anne Sexton: A Biography spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, which is unusual for a biography of a minor poet. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the National Book Critics Circle Award; it was awarded a gold medal in nonfiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
called the book “sympathetic but resolutely unsentimental ... intelligent, sensitive, at times harrowing.” The book was somewhat controversial, as Middlebrook was given access to (and freely used) some 300 hours of Sexton's sessions with psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
s.
Suits Me was a finalist for a Lambda Foundation Literary Award and a bestselling biography of Billy Tipton
Billy Tipton
Billy Lee Tipton was an American jazz musician and bandleader. Born Dorothy Tipton, he also notable for the discovery, after his death, that he was female assigned at birth.- Early life :...
, a female jazz musician who lived an entire professional and private life as a man. He/she married (five times) and had children (who were adopted). The wives, and everyone else, were unaware of the disguise. (Said one of his sons, “He’ll always be Dad to me.”) London’s Financial Times wrote, “Tipton may have spent his life fearing exposure, but he/she could not have wished for a more perceptive or sympathetic biographer than Middlebrook.”
Her Husband was a bestseller. It was a 2004 finalist for the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award in non-fiction. In 2006 the French translation won the Prix Du Meilleur Livre Etranger. The New York Times called the book “inspiring,” “attentive and clear-eyed.”
Middlebrook was noted for her openness and honest, sometimes "brutal" biographical writing. The more that each of us knows about each of the other human beings in the world, the better off [we] are. It’s true that it is very painful to be exposed to people’s curiosity. But it’s painful in a way that can only lead to self-knowledge, because it’s really not a big deal. In the scope of human endeavor, it’s not a big deal.
Writings
The Sexton biography became a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
. An intriguing blend of traditional biography, psychiatric
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
study, and literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
, the book was written in an infectious, non-pedantic style that attracted a wide range of readers.
Middlebrook then took an interesting detour from her study of poetry and poets in her next book, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton (1998). The story of a jazz musician who was born a woman but lived for over fifty years as a man, the book also sold well and showed that Middlebrook could range outside the traditional purview of the English Department.
The Sexton biography might have led inevitably to Middlebrook's book about Anne Sexton's friend and fellow-suicide, Sylvia Plath. Published as Her Husband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath, a Marriage in 2003, the biography steered a sensible and convincing course between partisan views of the two poets. Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
called it the "gold standard" of the many books published about the couple, and it became a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
bestseller.
Besides her books, Middlebrook published many articles on Sexton, Plath, Hughes, and other writers, such as Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
and Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
. She also reviewed a wide variety of books on subjects ranging from Helen Keller
Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree....
to the development of modern clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
. She said that her planned book on Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
was an attempt to get inside a subject who "exists only in his texts."
Personal life
Born Helen Diane Wood, in Pocatello, IdahoPocatello, Idaho
Pocatello is the county seat and largest city of Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock...
, Middlebrook spent the last 28 years of her life with her third husband, Carl Djerassi
Carl Djerassi
Carl Djerassi is an Austrian-American chemist, novelist, and playwright best known for his contribution to the development of the first oral contraceptive pill . Djerassi is emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University.He participated in the invention in 1951, together with Mexican Luis E...
, a Viennese
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
-born American scientist who helped invent the first contraceptive pill. Her first two marriages, to Michael Shough and Jonathan Middlebrook, were annulled. Middlebrook's experience with her two divorces was something that, in her own words, "rips your soul out of your body".
The second marriage gave her the name under which she established her literary reputation (Middlebrook). From that matrimony one child was born. Leah Middlebrook followed her illustrious mother's example, and taught Comparative Literature and Romance Languages.
In 1977 Middlebrook began a relationship with noted scientist Carl Djerassi
Carl Djerassi
Carl Djerassi is an Austrian-American chemist, novelist, and playwright best known for his contribution to the development of the first oral contraceptive pill . Djerassi is emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University.He participated in the invention in 1951, together with Mexican Luis E...
. They were married in 1985, and remained married until her death.
Middlebrook retired in 2002, and convinced Djerassi to also take retirement that year. She then concentrated more fully on her research, and she and Djerassi divided their time between their residences in San Francisco and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Final illness
Middlebrook was operated on for cancer in July 2001, and her prognosis was originally optimistic. However, she was again operated on in February 2004, with less sanguine result. Her passing on 15 December 2007 was attributed to retroperitoneal liposarcomaLiposarcoma
Liposarcoma is a malignant tumor that arises in fat cells in deep soft tissue, such as that inside the thigh or in the retroperitoneum.They are typically large bulky tumors which tend to have multiple smaller satellites extending beyond the main confines of the tumor.Liposarcomas, like all...
.
Sources
- Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Middlebrook, Houghton Mifflin Company 1991 ISBN 0-395-35362-9
- Her Husband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath, a Marriage by Diane Middlebrook, Viking Adult 2003 ISBN 0-670-03187-9
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/arts/17middlebrook.html|a New York Times obituary
External links
- DianeMiddlebrook.com, the author's personal web site
- Interview with Diane Middlebrook on her career as a writer
- Interview with Diane Middlebrook on her personal life and her views of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
- Interview with Diane Middlebrook on ReadySteadyBook
- Telling Tales Out of School: Profile of Diane Middlebrook by Cynthia Haven, Stanford Magazine, November/December 2003.
- Diane Middlebrook, professor emeritus and legendary biographer, dies at 68 by Cynthia Haven, Stanford Report, Jan. 9, 2008.