John Felstiner (July 5, 1936 – February 24, 2017), Professor Emeritus of English at Stanford University,[1] was an American literary critic, translator, and poet. His interests included poetry in various languages, environmental and ecologic poems, literary translation, Vietnam era poetry and Holocaust studies.[2] John Felstiner died in February 2017 at the age of 80. He had been suffering from the effects of progressive aphasia at his time of death, at a hospice near Stanford.

John Felstiner
Felstiner at Stanford University in 2009
Website	canpoetrysavetheearth.com

Biography

Felstiner was born in Mount Vernon, New York[3] and grew up in New York and New England. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy,[4] Harvard College, A.B. (magna cum laude), 1958, and Harvard University, Ph.D., 1965.[2]

From 1958 to 1961, he served on the USS Forrestal, in the Mediterranean.[5] Felstiner came to Stanford University in 1965 and was a professor of English at Stanford until his retirement in 2009. Felstiner is also known for writing, non academically but very movingly, of a former student of his, Elizabeth Wiltsee, in the late 60’s at Stanford. Pretty, precocious “Liz” Wiltsee had been a brilliant literature student, who declined into mental illness and homelessness, never fulfilling her great promise. She died around the age of 50, under mysterious circumstances.[5] While at Stanford, Felstiner was three times a fellow at Stanford Humanities Center; a Fulbright professor at University of Chile (1967–68); visiting professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1974–75); and visiting professor of Comparative Literature and English at Yale University (1990, 2002).[2]

His collection of Paul Celan’s manuscripts, letters, and widespread context, along with Felstiner’s own translation archive, are housed at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.[6]

John and his wife, the writer, historian and professor Mary Lowenthal Felstiner, have two children: Sarah and Alek, and also two grandchildren.[7]

Selected works

• The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories by Henry James, edited with an introduction, biography, and notes by John Felstiner, 1966, Scholastic Book Services, ASIN B000V51Y68
• Max Beerbohm and the Wings of Henry James, 1967
• The Lies of Art: Max Beerbohm's Parody and Caricature, 1972, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 978-0394472270
• The Dark Room and Other Poems, by Enrique Lihn, co-translator John Felstiner New Directions, 1978, ASIN B002SMJFNG
• Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu, Stanford University Press, 1980, ISBN 978-0804713276
• ‘Deep in the glowing text-void’: Translating Late Celan, Representations 32, 1990,
• Looking for Kafka, Stanford: Associates of the Stanford University Libraries, 1990, ASIN B002RYON96
• Looking for Kafka, Stanford Magazine, Winter 1991
• Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew, Yale University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0300089226
• Heights of Macchu Picchu / Alturas de Macchu Picchu, by Pablo Neruda, translator John Felstiner, with photographs by Edward Ranney, Limited Editions Club, 1998, ASIN B000WW5FYM
• Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, Co-editor, W.W. Norton, 2000, ISBN 978-0393048094
• Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, editor and translator, W.W. Norton, 2001, ISBN 978-0393322248
• this dust of words: Elizabeth Wiltsee, Stanford Magazine, Sept.- Oct. 2001
• Paul Celan Meets Samuel Beckett, American Poetry Review, July - August 2004
• Writing Zion: An Exchange between Celan and Amichai, The New Republic, 12 June 2006
• 'Lure of the God': Robert Duncan on Translating Rilke. (with David Goldstein), Jacket 31, October 2006
• 'Earth’s Most Graphic Transaction': The Syllables of Emily Dickinson, American Poetry Review, Mar.- Apr. 2007
• Nature vs. Man: For Robinson Jeffers, it wasn’t even close, The Weekly Standard, 28 May 2007
• 'It looks just like the Cascades': Gary Snyder’s Eye for the Real World, Jacket 34, October 2007
• History vs. Nature [W. B. Yeats], The Weekly Standard, 22 September 2008
• Modern Critical Views: Emily Dickinson, ed. Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publications, 2008, ISBN 978-0791096130
• Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai: An Exchange on Nation and Exile, WORDS without BORDERS, 2008
• 'that witnessing presence': Life Illumined Around Denise Levertov, Jacket 36, 2008
• The One and Only Circle: Paul Celan’s Letters to Gisèle, introduction and translation from the French by John Felstiner, Fiction 54, 2008
• Can Poetry Save the Earth?: A Field Guide to Nature Poems, Yale University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0300168136
• ‘Deep in the time-crevasse’: Celan’s Outward and Inward Landscape, Free Verse: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry & Poetics, Summer 2010
• John Felstiner on Paul Celan, Poetry Society of America
• The Post Natural World: An Interview with Gary Snyder, Poetry Foundation,
• John Felstiner: The Future We Want—Can Poetry Save the Earth, Rio+20 - United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
• Maverick translation, Jacket2, 21 November 2014
• THE V-LETTER: A STORY SURVIVED, Michigan Quarterly Review, 10 December 2014

Selected honors and awards

• First Kenyon Review Prize in Criticism, for Max Beerbohm and the Wings of Henry James (1967) [8]
• National Endowment for the Arts Literature and Translation Fellowships (1969, 1971, 1984, 2002) [9]
• Rockefeller (1980), Guggenheim (1983), and National Endowment for the Humanities (1971, 1989) fellowships, and Bellagio Center (Rockefeller Foundation) Residency (1996) [2]
• Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu won the California Commonwealth Club Gold Medal for Non-fiction.[2]
• Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew won the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Criticism and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award and the Modern Language Association’s James Russell Lowell prize.[2]
• Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan won translation prizes from the American Translators Association, Modern Language Association, and PEN West.[2]
• Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005.[10]

References

Selected interviews, book reviews, and articles

• Audio: An Author Asks: ‘Can Poetry Save The Earth’ from KQED "Forum" with Michael Krasny on NPR
• this dust of words Stanford Magazine, September/October 2001
• Felstiner on poetry, environmentalism Stanford University News, April 1, 2009
• How Jews used ‘creative resistance’ to oppose the Nazis Stanford University News, April 30, 2010
• Attentiveness – Natural Prayer of the Soul: Interview with John Felstiner by Ilya Kaminsky, In Posse Review
• This Dust of Words A film by Bill Rose based on the memoir by John Felstiner
• Paul Celan, John Felstiner, and the Soul of Beauty by Cynthia Haven, The Book Haven, October 21, 2012
• Farewell to John Felstiner, critic, translator, poet: “an exemplary life in literature” by Cynthia Haven, The Book Haven, March 3, 2017