Louis Simpson

Jiri Flajsar (Palacky University Olomouc)

Ed. by Matthew Hofer, University of New Mexico
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 27 Mar 1923
Died 14 Sep 2012
Activity 1949-2012

Places

Born in Jamaica
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Autobiographer
Essayist
Literary Critic/ Historian
Novelist
Poet
Scholar
Teacher/ Professor

Resources

Louis (Aston Marantz) Simpson was an influential American poet, editor, critic, and professor whose ironic lyrics written in a conversational tone helped revolutionize American poetry in the early 1960s. A prolific writer, he remained a visible literary presence from the late 1940s until the late 2000s.

Simpson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 27 March 1923. His father, Aston Simpson, was a prominent Jamaican lawyer of Scottish descent. Simpson’s mother, Rosalind de Marantz, was a Jewish-American immigrant with Russian and Polish roots who came to Jamaica from the United States to act in a film and stayed. Emulating British colonial upper-class conventions was crucial to the ambition of Simpson’s parents to win acceptance into the highest social circles, especially since their ethnic background was something to hide in the early twentieth century. When Simpson was...

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2285 words

Citation: Flajsar, Jiri. "Louis Simpson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 December 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4081, accessed 09 June 2026.]