Wallace Fowlie

Wallace Fowlie (1908–1998) was an American writer and professor of literature. He was the James B. Duke Professor of French Literature at Duke University where he taught from 1964 to the end of his career. Devoted to teaching, particularly undergraduate courses in French, Italian, and modernist literature, Fowlie influenced several generations of American college students over a six-decade career of teaching. Probably his best-known student is another writer and critic of French literature, Roger Shattuck. Fowlie was also noted for his correspondence with literary figures such as Henry Miller, René Char, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Saint-John Perse, Marianne Moore, and Anaïs Nin. He is best known for his translations of Arthur Rimbaud, which were appreciated by a younger generation that included Jim Morrison (whose work Fowlie also became a scholar of) and Patti Smith. In 1990, Fowlie consulted with director Oliver Stone on the film The Doors.