William Vaughn Moody

William Vaughn Moody

William Vaughn Moody (July 8, 1869 – October 17, 1910) was a United States dramatist and poet. Author of The Great Divide, first presented under the title of The Sabine Woman at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago on April 12, 1906. Moody's poetic dramas included The Masque of Judgment (1900), The Fire Bringer (1904), and The Death of Eve (left undone at his death).

Biography

Born at Spencer, Indiana, his parents died while he was a boy, and he had to work to help support himself while he completed his education. After attending New Albany High School he went on to Harvard University, where he was awarded the George B. Sohier Prize for literature and earned an A.B. in 1893 and an A.M. in 1894.

He taught English at Harvard and Radcliffe until 1895, when he went to Chicago where he was an instructor at the University of Chicago, and from 1901 to 1907 assistant professor of English and rhetoric. He received the degree of Litt.D. from Yale in 1908, and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Moody died from brain cancer at Colorado Springs at the age of 41.

Works

• The Masque of Judgment (1900)
• Poems (1901)
• The Fire-Bringer (1904, intended as the first member of a trilogy on the Promethean theme, of which The Masque of Judgment, already published, was the second member)
• The Great Divide (1907), prose drama, especially successful on the stage
• The Faith Healer (1909), prose drama, very successful on the stage
• A First View of English and American Literature (compiler with Robert M. Lovett; 1902)
• The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton (editor; 1899, Cambridge)
• The Poems of Trumbull Stickney (editor with George Cabot Lodge and John Ellerton Lodge; 1905)

His complete works, including The Death of Eve, a fragment of the third member of the proposed trilogy mentioned above, were edited with an introduction by John M. Manly (1912).

References

•  "Moody, William Vaughn". Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.  This work in turn cites:
  • Daniel Gregory Mason, Some Letters of William Vaughn Moody (1913)

This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

External links

• Biography at poemhunter.com
• Biography at nndb.com
• TheatreHistory.com profile