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Size | 8.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 5100 items) |
Abstract | Sister Bernetta Quinn (1915- ) received a B.A. degree from the College of St. Teresa in 1942, an M.A. from the Catholic University of America in 1944, and a Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1952. A teacher and poet, Sister Bernetta's two primary areas of scholarship are the Catholic Church and modernist poetry, especially the life and work of Ezra Pound and Randall Jarrell. Correspondence, writings by Sister Bernetta and others, photographs, and other papers. Correspondence is between Sister Bernetta and a wide circle of friends, colleagues, and fellow scholars. Much correspondence is personal in nature, but a good portion of it concerns Sister Bernetta's scholarship, particularly her work on Randall Jarrell and Ezra Pound. Major correspondents include Jarrell's wives Mackie and Mary and brother Charles, Robert Penn Warren, Pound's daughter Mary De Rachewiltz and longtime companion Olga Rudge, Flannery O'Connor's mother Regina O'Connor, Richard Wilbur, Donald Davidson, Peter Taylor, Sylvia Wilkinson, Doris Betts, Robie Macauley, Heather Ross Miller, Gibbons Ruark, Shelby Stephenson, Ron Bayes, Carolyn Kizer, Denise Levertov, Seamus Heaney, Grace DiSanto, and Fred Chappell. Writings by Sister Bernetta include scholarly articles, poetry, book reviews, journals and meditations, and notes. There are also drafts of her prose adaption for children of Dante's "Divine Comedy." Photographs include one of poets James Wright and Robert Bly on horseback, probably from the 1960s. |
Creator | Quinn, Mary Bernetta. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Christopher Ryland, Jackie Dean, Kristin Baugh, April 1995
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, June 2021
Back to TopThe following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
Sister Bernetta Quinn was born on 19 September 1915 in Lake Geneva, Wisc. She received a B.A degree from the College of St. Teresa in 1942, an M.A. from the Catholic University of America in 1944, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1952. She has taught on the elementary and high school levels, as well as at colleges, including the College of Saint Teresa, Allen University, Norfolk State University, and Saint Andrews Presbyterian College.
An accomplished poet in her own right, Sister Bernetta's two primary areas of scholarship are the Catholic Church and modernist poetry, especially the life and work of Ezra Pound and Randall Jarrell. Among her publications are Ezra Pound: An Introduction to the Poetry; Give Me Souls: A Life of Raphael Cardinal Merry del Val; The Metamorphic Tradition in Modern Poetry; To God Alone the Glory: A Life of Saint Bonaventure; Randall Jarrell; and Dancing in Stillness , a book of poems. Her scholarly articles and poems have appeared in the PMLA, Shenandoah; Contemporary Literature; College English; and the Sewanee Review.
Back to TopCorrespondence, writings by Sister Bernetta and others, photographs, and other papers. Correspondence is between Sister Bernetta and a wide circle of friends, colleagues, and fellow scholars. Most letters are filed by name of correspondent, but some are categorized by subject.
Writings by Sister Bernetta include scholarly articles, poetry, book reviews, journals and meditations, and notes. Writings in their published forms are filed in subseries 2.6. Writings by others include articles, poems, and books that Sister Bernetta collected. Note that some writings by others are included as enclosures in the correspondence series.
Back to TopArrangement: alphabetical.
Correspondence between Sister Bernetta and a wide circle of friends, colleagues, and fellow scholars. The series is divided into three subseries: letters of major correspondents, including a few folders of material arranged by topic; letters of correspondents, chiefly members of religious orders, who are identified by first name only; and miscellaneous correspondence, some of which is categorized by subject.
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Letters between Sister Bernetta Quinn and important individuals or those with substantive correspondence. Most folders are labeled with the correspondent's name, but there are some that are labeled by subject.
Much of the correspondence is personal in nature, but a good portion of it concerns Sister Bernetta's scholarship, particularly her work on Randall Jarrell and Ezra Pound. Jarrell materials include letters solicited by Sister Bernetta in the course of gathering information for her Twayne Series book called Randall Jarrell. Among the correspondents are Jarrell's wives Mackie and Mary, as well as his students, colleagues, and contemporaries, many of whom offered anecdotes and remembrances of the man and the poet. Mackie Jarrell's letters serve mostly as background to Jarrell's family and early adulthood. Sister Bernetta and Mary Jarrell became close friends, and there is personal exchange in letters between them, as well as references to Randall Jarrell. There are also some letters of Charles Jarrell to his mother and to his brother Randall.
Letters relating to Ezra Pound include those of Sister Bernetta's friend Mary De Rachewiltz, Pound's daughter. De Rachewiltz, who has taken an active role in Pound scholarship, mentioned her father in several letters. The references, however, relate to Pound's work, not to the man himself. There are also a number of letters from Olga Rudge, a music scholar and Pound's longtime companion (pictures of Rudge are enclosed with several De Rachewiltz letters).
Also included are one letter from Richard Wilbur; a copy of a letter from Donald Davidson to Suzanne Ferguson; letters from Mackie and Mary Jarrell to Suzanne Ferguson; and letters from Peter Taylor, Sylvia Wilkinson, Doris Betts, Robie Macauley, Heather Ross Miller, Gibbons Ruark, Shelby Stephenson, Ron Bayes, Carolyn Kizer, Denise Levertov, Robert Penn Warren, and Seamus Heaney.
Many of these letters concern Sister Bernetta's interest in seminars, grants, and teaching positions. Letters from Grace DiSanto and Fred Chappell relate to DiSanto's long illness. Letters from Regina O'Connor contain a few references to her daughter Flannery. Other writers represented in this series include Chuck Sullivan, John Stone, and Sister Raphael Tilton.
Folders for Ronald Reagan, Malcolm Cowley, Michael Dukakis, and Alex Haley contain items of minor importance.
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Letters from individuals who are identified by first name only, many of whom are or were connected with the Catholic Church.
Folder 255 |
Sister Alcantara |
Folder 256 |
Mother Angelica |
Folder 257 |
Williams, Floss |
Folder 258 |
Janet |
Folder 259 |
Fr. Michael |
Folder 260 |
Fr. Paul |
Folder 261 |
Roger (Gordian Press, Inc.) |
Folder 262 |
Susan |
Folder 263 |
Teresa |
Folder 264 |
Fr. Vormwald |
Folder 265 |
Walter |
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Miscellaneous letters, some of which is categorized by subject. Professional letters are chiefly about grant applications, job interviews, and related matters. Religious letters are on religious themes.
Folder 266 |
Correspondents with last names A-M |
Folder 267 |
Correspondents with last names N-Z |
Folder 268 |
Correspondents identified by first names only |
Folder 269 |
Unidentified correspondents |
Folder 270 |
Professional letters |
Folder 271 |
Religious letters |
Writings by Sister Bernetta, including scholarly articles, poetry, book reviews, journals and meditations, and notes. This series is divided into subseries according to genre, except for subseries 2.6 which contains various writings in their published forms.
Arrangement: alphabetical.
Scholarly writings by Sister Bernetta about T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and others, but focusing on Randall Jarrell. The Jarrell criticism includes articles by Sister Bernetta, as well as material for an apparently unpublished book on Jarrell (folders 277-279). Also included are two audio cassette tapes of lectures by Sister Bernetta.
Folder 272-281
Folder 272Folder 273Folder 274Folder 275Folder 276Folder 277Folder 278Folder 279Folder 280Folder 281 |
Writings on Randall Jarrell |
Audiocassette C-4307/1 |
Lecture on Jarrell |
Folder 282-286b |
Writings on other authors |
Audiocassette C-4307/2 |
Lecture on Dorothy Day |
Copies of poems by Sister Bernetta, many of them written in the 1980s. This subseries is organized by compositi on stage, with holograph drafts are first, followed by poems written in journals, then poems with both holograph and typescript drafts, offprints of published poems, and finally miscellaneous typescript poems. Poems in their published form can be found in Series 2.6. Also included is an audio cassette tape of Kay Mullen reading from Sister Bernetta's Dancing in Stillness.
Folder 287-296
Folder 287Folder 288Folder 289Folder 290Folder 291Folder 292Folder 293Folder 294Folder 295Folder 296 |
Poetry, circa 1947-1990s |
Audiocassette C-4307/3 |
Kay Mullen reading from Dancing in Stillness |
Book reviews written by Sister Bernetta for newspapers and journals. Book reviews in their published form can be found in Series 2.6.
Folder 297-300
Folder 297Folder 298Folder 299Folder 300 |
Book reviews, circa 1966-1972 |
Journals and meditations, most with religious themes. Much of the material focuses on Sister Bernetta's relationship to God. There are, however, several journals recording trips Sister Bernetta made to Japan. Among these journal entries are included postcards and newspaper clippings documenting her travel experiences. Also included in several of the volumes are notes and scholarly material.
Folder 301-307
Folder 301Folder 302Folder 303Folder 304Folder 305Folder 306Folder 307 |
Journals and meditations, circa 1972-1988 |
Box 12-13
Box 12Box 13 |
Journals and meditations, circa 1972-1988 |
In the 1980s, Sister Bernetta was preparing a prose adaptation for children of Dante's Divine Comedy. These five notebooks contain early drafts of this project.
Box 13 |
"Pilgrimage to the Stars," 1987? |
Bibliographies, letters to editors, and lectures given by Sister Bernetta from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. The bibliographies document her poetic and critical production over the course of her career. The letters to editors are to both newspapers and scholarly journals. Among the topics covered are capital punishment and Ezra Pound. Lectures are entitled "What Literature Affirms and How," "Portrait of a Distinguished Alumna: Sonia Gernes," and "Image and Idea: The Collage in Freshman Composition."
Folder 308 |
Bibliographies |
Folder 309 |
Letters to editors |
Folder 310 |
Lectures |
Articles, poems, book reviews, and books by Sister Bernetta in published form. Included are her books To God Alone the Glory: A Life of Saint Bonaventure; Give Me Souls: A Life of Raphael Cardinal Merry del Val ; and Randall Jarrell (Twayne Series). Also included are books in which her articles appear, such as Modern American Poetry ("Paterson: Listening to Landscape") and Sylvia Plath: New Views on the Poetry ("Medusan Imagery in Sylvia Plath"). Also included are essays, book reviews, and poems in Pembroke Magazine, the Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Saint Andrews Review, and other journals. Dancing in Stillness, a chapbook of Sister Bernetta's poems, is also included.
Box 14-16
Box 14Box 15Box 16 |
Writings in published form, circa 1951-1988 |
Articles, poems, and books written by Arthur Axlerod, Mary Belle Campbell, David Gascoyne, Pauline Hanson, Anne Kernan, Heather Ross Miller (three books of poetry), Robert Peters, Ezra Pound (Sister Bernetta's annotated copy of the Cantos), Shelby Stephenson, and John Stone. Also included are the issues of Wharrie Review, Medicine at Emory, Censer (College of Saint Teresa, 1958), and LNII (Laurinburg Institute Yearbook, 1970-1971). Also included are two audio cassette tapes that contain readings by Sister Bernetta of Shelby Stephenson's "Finch's Mash" and "The Persimmon Tree Carol."
Audiocassette C-4307/4 |
"Finch's Mash" |
Audiocassette C-4307/5 |
"The Persimmon Tree Carol" |
Photographs of Sister Bernetta, friends, and relatives. Of interest is a photograph of poets James Wright and Robert Bly on horseback, undated but apparently from the 1960s.
Image P-4307/1 |
James Wright and Robert Bly, undated. |
Image P-4307/2 |
Caption: "Henry Moore's statue 'Knife Edge' unveiled as a memorial to W. B. Yeats," 1976. |
Image P-4307/3-23
P-4307/3P-4307/4P-4307/5P-4307/6P-4307/7P-4307/8P-4307/9P-4307/10P-4307/11P-4307/12P-4307/13P-4307/14P-4307/15P-4307/16P-4307/17P-4307/18P-4307/19P-4307/20P-4307/21P-4307/22P-4307/23 |
Sister Bernetta with friends and family. Of note are the "Class of 1937" pictures (P-4307/3 and P-4307/10). |
Image P-4307/24-33
P-4307/24P-4307/25P-4307/26P-4307/27P-4307/28P-4307/29P-4307/30P-4307/31P-4307/32P-4307/33 |
Miscellaneous people. |
Newspaper clippings, newsletters, bulletins, handouts, flyers, notices, and biographical material concerning Sister Bernetta, her readings, and other topics.
Folder 311-315
Folder 311Folder 312Folder 313Folder 314Folder 315 |
Other Papers, circa 1966-1992 |