Elizabeth Bishop's World War II-Cold War

Elizabeth Bishop's World War II - Cold War View, offers a comprehensive portrayal of the poet in mid-century America. The elusive story of Bishop's national, cultural, and literary politics during World War II - Cold War period finally is brought into sharp focus - as the book traces her life and writing from the war years in Key West through her tenure as the 1949-1950 national poet laureate at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Our understanding of Bishop is reshaped by this study's ability to move back and forth between a wide-ranging cultural critique of mid-20th century America and a careful, close, and chronological reading of the poet.