Jean Starr Untermeyer
Jean Starr Untermeyer (1886–1970) was an American poet, translator, and educator. She wrote six books of poetry and a memoir. She was married to the poet Louis Untermeyer from 1907 to 1926, and they had a son named Richard in 1907.
Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Zanesville, Ohio, she grew up with a strong arts background. Her parents were Abram and Johanna Starr. She studied at Kohut College Preparatory School for Girls in New York City and learned to sing and play piano. She attended Columbia University, where she met Louis Untermeyer. They married in 1907 before she finished college, and with Louis’s help she began publishing poetry. Her first book, Growing Pains (1918), was followed by Dreams Out of Darkness (1921).
Untermeyer once hoped to be a singer. In 1924 she gave Lieder performances in Berlin and Vienna, but the reception was not strong, and she did not pursue a singing career. The couple spent time in Europe and returned to the United States, staying at the MacDowell artist colony in 1925. They divorced in 1926.
Tragedy struck in 1927 when their son Richard, then 19, died by suicide at Yale University. Jean and Louis later reconciled and remarried after Louis had been married and divorced again; they adopted two sons. They separated again around 1933, with Louis taking custody of the boys.
Jean Untermeyer continued to write poetry, publishing Winged Child in 1936. Her poetry often used traditional forms and drew on nature, home life, self-discipline, and loss.
In 1938 she visited the MacDowell Colony again, and in 1939, at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, she began a relationship with German writer Hermann Broch. He asked her to translate his work in progress, Der Tod des Vergil (The Death of Virgil), starting in 1940. When the previous translators could not complete it, Untermeyer became the official translator. Broch and Untermeyer worked closely, with intense and sometimes contentious feedback. The translation was published in 1945, alongside the German edition, and critics called it a landmark in literary translation.
Afterward, she returned to writing poetry and taught at Olivet College in Michigan and at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:44 (CET).