Editing Tennessee Williams (section)

==Education==
From 1929 to 1931, Williams attended the [[University of Missouri]] in [[Columbia, Missouri|Columbia]], where he enrolled in journalism classes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://theatre.missouri.edu/notable-alumni |title=Notable Alumni |publisher=University of Missouri-Department of Theatre |date=July 19, 2016 |access-date=February 23, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170913183118/https://theatre.missouri.edu/notable-alumni |archive-date=September 13, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>  He was bored by his classes and distracted by  unrequited love for a girl. Soon he began entering his poetry, essays, stories, and plays in writing contests, hoping to earn extra income.  His first submitted play was ''Beauty Is the Word'' (1930), followed by ''Hot Milk at Three in the Morning'' (1932).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/manuscript.htm |title=Manuscript Materials – Division of Special Collections, Archives and Rare Books |publisher=University of Missouri |access-date=March 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110202025428/http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/manuscript.htm |archive-date=February 2, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> As recognition for ''Beauty,'' a play about rebellion against religious upbringing, he became the first freshman to receive honorable mention in a writing competition.{{sfn|Roudané|1997|page=15}}

At University of Missouri, Williams joined the [[Alpha Tau Omega]] fraternity, but he did not fit in well with his fraternity brothers. After he failed a military training course in his junior year, his father pulled him out of school and put him to work at the International Shoe Company factory. Although Williams hated the monotony, the job forced him out of the gentility of his upbringing.{{sfn|Roudané|1997|page=15}} His dislike of his new 9-to-5 routine drove Williams to write prodigiously. He set a goal of writing one story a week. Williams often worked on weekends and late into the night. His mother recalled his intensity:

<blockquote>Tom would go to his room with black coffee and cigarettes and I would hear the typewriter clicking away at night in the silent house. Some mornings when I walked in to wake him for work, I would find him sprawled fully dressed across the bed, too tired to remove his clothes.<ref name=Williams1>{{cite book| last=Williams| first=Tennessee| editor-last=Thornton|editor-first=Margaret Bradham| title=Notebooks| url=https://archive.org/details/notebooks0000will| url-access=registration| quote=| publisher=Yale Univ. Press| date=January 30, 2007| page=xi| isbn=978-0300116823}}</ref></blockquote>

Overworked, unhappy, and lacking further success with his writing, by his 24th birthday Williams had suffered a [[mental disorder|nervous breakdown]] and left his job. Memories of this period and of a particular factory co-worker would contribute to the character [[Stanley Kowalski]] in ''A Streetcar Named Desire''.{{sfn|Roudané|1997|page=15}} By the mid-1930s his mother separated from his father due to his worsening alcoholism and abusive temper. They agreed to a legal separation in 1946 but never divorced.<ref>{{cite journal| first=John S.| last=Bak| title=Edwina Dakin Williams's Diary Entries, 1931 to 1934: An Introduction| date=2019| journal=Tennessee Williams Annual Review| issue=18| access-date=July 2, 2024| publisher=[[Historic New Orleans Collection]]| pages=7–17 | doi=10.2307/48615454| jstor=48615454| url=https://doi.org/10.2307/48615454}}</ref>

In 1936, Williams enrolled at [[Washington University in St. Louis]] where he wrote the play ''Me, Vashya'' (1937). After not winning the school's poetry prize, he decided to drop out. In the autumn of 1937, he transferred to the [[University of Iowa]] in [[Iowa City, Iowa|Iowa City]], where he graduated with a B.A. in English in August 1938.<ref>[https://www.writinguniversity.org/writers/tennessee-williams "Tennessee Williams"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418161234/https://www.writinguniversity.org/writers/tennessee-williams |date=April 18, 2018 }}, Writing University</ref> He later studied at the [[Dramatic Workshop]] of [[The New School]] in New York City. Speaking of his early days as a playwright and an early collaborative play called ''Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay!'', Williams wrote, "The laughter ... enchanted me. Then and there the theatre and I found each other for better and for worse. I know it's the only thing that saved my life."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3PX5 |title=Tennessee State Historical Marker 2 May 2008. |access-date=July 4, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110814201231/http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3PX5 |archive-date=August 14, 2011 |url-status=live  }}</ref>  Around 1939, he adopted Tennessee Williams as his professional name, in acknowledgement of his Southern accent and roots.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Parini |first1=Jay |title=American Writers Classics |date=2003 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |isbn=978-0-684-31248-4 |page=304 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CTjcOQ0oE6kC |quote= "Williams acknowledged when, in 1939, he adopted his famous nom de plume."}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gontarski |first1=S. E. |title=Tennessee Williams, T-shirt Modernism and the Refashionings of Theater |date=6 July 2021 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-78527-689-7 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DbEzEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT15 |language=en}}</ref>

===Literary influences===
[[File:Tennessee Williams NYWTS 2.jpg|thumb|upright=1| Williams arriving at funeral services for [[Dylan Thomas]] in 1953]]
Williams's writings reference some of the poets and writers he most admired in his early years: [[Hart Crane]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hermeren |first1=Goran |title=Influence in Art and Literature |date=8 March 2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-6945-9 |page=270 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SXt9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA270 |language=en}}</ref> [[Arthur Rimbaud]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aubyn |first1=Frederic Chase St |title=Arthur Rimbaud |date=1988 |publisher=Twayne |isbn=978-0-8057-8227-1 |page=147 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ps1cAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref> [[Anton Chekhov]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gross |first1=Robert |title=Tennessee Williams: A Casebook |date=19 September 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-67354-3 |page=173 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FDaPBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA173 |language=en}}</ref> [[William Shakespeare]], [[Clarence Darrow]],{{sfn|Gross|2014|p=27}} [[D. H. Lawrence]],{{sfn|Roudané|1997|p=167}} [[Katherine Mansfield]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davison |first1=Claire |title=Katherine Mansfield and Translation |date=23 September 2015 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-0775-5 |page=206 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zqk_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT206 |language=en}}</ref> [[August Strindberg]],{{sfn|Roudané|1997|p=167}} [[William Faulkner]],{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2012|p=513}} [[Thomas Wolfe]],{{sfn|Gross|2014|p=204}} [[Emily Dickinson]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kabatchnik |first1=Amnon |title=Blood on the Stage, 1975-2000: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection |date=18 October 2012 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-8355-0 |page=513 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y6CjzgBKTa8C&pg=PA513 |language=en}}</ref> [[William Inge]],{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2012|p=513}} [[James Joyce]],{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2012|p=513}}  and, according to some, [[Ernest Hemingway]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kolin |first1=Philip |title=Tennessee Williams: A Guide to Research and Performance |date=28 October 1998 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-30306-7 |page=91 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-dLEDZFQNCEC&pg=PA91 |language=en}}</ref>