Fiction. Poet and short story writer. Philosophical and deeply meditative nature.

Definitive portrait of the Jewish middle class in New York during the Depression.

Emphasized the large divide that existed between his generation (which came of age during the Depression) and his parents' generation (who had often come to the United States as first-generation immigrants and whose idealistic view of America differed greatly from his own).

Alcoholism and mental illness.

Delmore Schwartz was born December 8, 1913, in Brooklyn to Romanian immigrant parents. Their marriage however failed and this affected him all his life.   Inspite of his unhappy and unsettled childhood though he was was a gifted and intellectual young student. He enrolled early at Columbia University, and also studied at the University of Wisconsin, eventually receiving his bachelor`s degree in 1935 in philosophy from New York University.   In 1936 he won the Bowdoin Prize in the Humanities for his essay Poetry as Imitation. In 1937 his short story In Dreams Begin Responsibilities  was published in Partisan Review a left wing magazine.The following year his first book

Academy of American Poets.