<P> Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee . He attended Hume - Fogg High School where he "practiced tennis, starred in some school plays, and began his career as a critic with satirical essays in a school magazine ." He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1935 . While at Vanderbilt, he edited the student humor magazine The Masquerader, was captain of the tennis team, made Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude . He studied there under Robert Penn Warren, who first published Jarrell's criticism; Allen Tate, who first published Jarrell's poetry; and John Crowe Ransom, who gave Jarrell his first teaching job as a Freshman Composition instructor at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio . Although all of these Vanderbilt teachers were heavily involved with the conservative Southern Agrarian movement, Jarrell did not become an Agrarian himself . According to Stephen Burt, "Jarrell--a devotee of Marx and Auden--embraced his teachers' literary stances while rejecting their politics ." He also completed his master's degree in English at Vanderbilt in 1937, beginning his thesis on A.E. Housman (which he completed in 1939). </P> <P> When Ransom left Vanderbilt for Kenyon College in Ohio that same year, a number of his loyal students, including Jarrell, followed him to Kenyon . Jarrell taught English at Kenyon for two years, coached tennis, and served as the resident faculty member in an undergraduate dormitory that housed future writers Robie Macauley, Peter Taylor, and poet Robert Lowell . Lowell and Jarrell remained good friends and peers until Jarrell's death . According to Lowell biographer Paul Mariani, "Jarrell was the first person of (Lowell's) own generation (whom he) genuinely held in awe" due to Jarrell's brilliance and confidence even at the age of 23 . </P> <P> Jarrell went on to teach at the University of Texas at Austin from 1939 to 1942, where he began to publish criticism and where he met his first wife, Mackie Langham . In 1942 he left the university to join the United States Army Air Forces . According to his obituary, he "(started) as a flying cadet, (then) he later became a celestial navigation tower operator, a job title he considered the most poetic in the Air Force ." His early poetry would focus on the subject of his war - time experiences in the Air Force . </P> <P> The Jarrell obituary goes on to state that "after being discharged from the service he joined the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., for a year . During his time in New York, he also served as the temporary book review editor for The Nation magazine ." However, Jarrell was uncomfortable living in the city and "claimed to hate New York's crowds, high cost of living, status - conscious sociability, and lack of greenery ." He didn't end up staying in the city for long . Instead, he left for the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina where, as an associate professor of English, he taught modern poetry and "imaginative writing ." </P>

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