Jeremy Ingalls
Scholar, writer, adventurer, woman of her time. 1911-2000
Jeremy Ingalls was born Mildred Dodge Jeremy Ingalls in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on April 2, 1911. She received both Bachelor of Arts and Master¹s degrees in Literature from Tufts University in Boston. Ingalls went on to do graduate studies as a Republic of China Fellow of Classical Chinese Literature and Language at the University of Chicago, where she also worked with Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, Thornton Wilder. After teaching at Western College in Ohio, Ingalls became Resident Poet and lecturer of English Literature and Asian Literature at Rockford College in Illinois. She later served as Director of the English Department and of the Department of Asian Studies.
In 1941 Ingalls' book of poems, The Metaphysical
Sword, was awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize by Stephen Vincent Benet. A review in the Atlantic Monthly praised Ingalls' poetry as precise and economical, with a "clear light and cool phrasing" as well as an "edged irony which goes straight to its mark." Ingalls' other poetry collections include
Tahl (1945),
The Woman From the Island (1958),
These Islands Also (1959),
This Stubborn Quantum (1983),
Summer Liturgy (1985) and her posthumously released
Selected Poems (2007).
Although Jeremy Ingalls was honored initially for her poetry, her many talents included musical composition, drama, literary/historical criticism, and translation. Her essays on metaphysical, cultural and political philosophy were published nationally and internationally, and her poetry and essays appeared regularly in contemporary anthologies, journals, and magazines for over five decades. During this period, she continued to lecture and publish books of poetry and prose. Ingalls' translations from China, Korea, and Japan include S. Y. Teng's The Political History of China, 1840-1928 (1958), and The Malice of Empire (1970), both of which are still in print in the U.S and China today.
Ingalls was awarded fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the Ford, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. She traveled around the world, teaching and lecturing, retiring as Professor Emeritus from Rockford College in 1960. Doctor Jeremy Ingalls was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature and Letters (Litt.D.) from her alma mater, Tufts University, in 1965.