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Peter Viereck

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Peter Robert Edwin Viereck (August 5, 1916 – May 13, 2006), was a Pulitzer Prize - winning poet and influential political thinker as well as a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College for five decades.

Contents

Background

Viereck was born in New York, the son of George Sylvester Viereck. He received his B.A. summa cum laude in history in 1937 from Harvard University. He then specialized in European history, receiving his M.A. in 1939 and his Ph.D. in 1942 in history, again from Harvard. Viereck died on May 13, 2006 after a prolonged illness.

Career

Poetry and scholarship

Viereck was prolific in his publications, writing continuously since 1938. He was a respected poet, publishing numerous poetry collections. In addition, a number of his poems were published in Poetry Magazine. His collection of poetry, Terror and Decorum, won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry as noted in the University of Toronto's "Timeline of English Poetry" [link].

Politics

He was also an early leader in the conservative movement, only to abandon it later. In April 1940, Viereck wrote the article, "[But—I'm a Conservative!]" for the The Atlantic Monthly, partly in reaction against the ideologies of his father, George Sylvester Viereck, a Nazi sympathizer:
"Peter Viereck's article "But I'm a conservative" in The Atlantic Monthly argued for a 'new conservatism' to counter the 'storm of authoritarianism' in Europe and moral relativism and materialism in the USA. He claimed communism and nazism were utopian and would sanction the murder of oppositions (as in anti-semitism) and that liberalism shared a naive belief in progress and humanity's essential goodness [link].
This article and Viereck's views were discussed by Tom Reiss in the 2005 The New Yorker article, [The First Conservative]:

"Viereck’s essay was deliberately provocative - 'I have watched the convention of revolt harden into dogmatic ritual,' he wrote of the Marxists who he said presided over campus life—but it also contained a sincere entreaty. Published as the Nazi armies were invading Denmark and Norway, it called for a “new conservatism” to combat the “storm of totalitarianism” abroad as well as moral relativism and soulless materialism at home" [].
In response to Reiss' article, John J. Miller wrote:
"Did you know that America's "first conservative" was an anti-capitalist poet who wanted Adlai Stevenson to become president? That's what The New Yorker claimed last week in a long profile of Peter Viereck, a man who is said to have "inspired" the conservative movement.... Viereck was on stage during the creation of modern conservatism, but only in the opening scene. Then he walked away, never to be heard from again, except occasionally as a heckler" [link].
Indeed, his ideologies are difficult to categorize as:
" Mr. Viereck's brand of conservatism shunned extremism of either stripe. He was an admirer of the New Deal, a supporter of Adlai Stevenson and an anti-communist who made it clear that he had little use for Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy [link]."

Teaching

Viereck initially taught at Smith College from 1946-7. He then joined the Mount Holyoke faculty in 1948 and taught there for nearly fifty years as a professor of history. He "retired" in 1987 but continued to teach his Russian survey course there until 1997.

Awards

Poetry

Publications in ''

Poetry collections

Non-fiction

Select articles

Select scholarship

Obituaries

References

''

Response to New Yorker article

External links

 

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