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Allen Tate
Names: John Orley Allen Tate
Born: November 19, 1899
Died: February 9, 1979
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Hometown: Winchester, KY
Residence: Nashville, TN
Education: BA Vanderbilt, 1922
Career: Lecturer Southwestern College, 1934-1936; Lecturer UNC
Women's College, 1938-1939; Poet-in-residence Princeton, 1939-1942; Poetry
Consultant Library of Congress, 1944-1945; Editor Sewanee Review,
1944-1946; Editor Henry Holt and Company, 1946-1948; Lecturer NYU, 1948-1951;
Professor Minnesota, 1951-1968
Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship, 1928-1929; National Institutes of
Arts and Letters Award, 1948; Bollingen Prize, 1956; Brandeis University
Medal, 1961; Dante Society Gold Medal, 1962; Fellow American Academy of
Arts and Letters, 1964; Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
1965
Genres: Novels, Poetry, Criticism, Other Nonfiction
Internet Sites:
Biography:
Allen Tate was born John Orly Allen Tate in Winchester, KY on November
19, 1899. His parents, John Orly Tate and Eleanor Varnell Tate,
had two sons already. The family moved frequently because his
father's businesses failed regularly; they survived by selling parcels
of inherited land to make ends meet. The moves made Tate's early
education somewhat uneven. He had to be tutored in mathematics
to gain acceptance toVanderbilt University, although he showed skill
in other fields, including languages and music. He was particularly
well-read, perhaps because of his mother's influence; she was an avid
reader.
He originally planned to be a musician, but at Vanderbilt he took classes
from John Crowe Ransom and Walter Curry, two members of the Fugitives.
Tate found a congenial spirit in Ransom and the other members of the
group. His knowledge of poetry, particularly French poets Ransom was
unfamiliar with, impressed the group. He joined the circle and
his interests turned to literature rather than music.
Ransom was using the group as a sounding board for his work and ideas.
He brought his own work to read and garner criticism, and encouraged
others to do the same. The circle also discussed literature
and attempted to formulate literary theory. Tate embraced this
work enthusiastically. He was one of the most active editors of
the group's literary magazine, Fugitive. He also wrote
for the magazine under the pseudonym Henry Feathertop.
Participation in the Fugitives gave Tate an early and thorough education
in writing, editing and literary theory. Of course, he was also
receiving a more formal education at Vanderbilt. He graduated
at the top of his class in 1922. After graduation, Tate continued
to be vitally involved in the Fugitives. He remained in Nashville,
roomed with Robert Penn Warren (another Fugitive), and wrote and edited
for Fugitive. In 1924, however, he moved to West Virginia
to teach secondary school. He married Caroline Gordon, a fellow
writer, in the end of that year. The couple moved to New York
City, both determined to become professional writers.
Breaking into the profession was difficult, however. Tate and
his family survived by editing and other jobs. Gordon eventually
secured a position as the secretary for Ford Madox Ford. After
learning the pinched circumstances they lived in, Ford secured a Guggenheim
Fellowship for Tate. The family moved abroad, enjoying a year
in Paris and the freedom to write. While in Paris they met the
many expatriate Americans who had settled or visited there at the end
of the 1920s--Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald,
among others. Tate embraced the American expatriate lifestyle in Paris,
but the work he produced during and after his trip was firmly rooted
in American concerns. Tate was especially interested in the South.
He published biographies of Southern leaders of the Civil War in 1928
and 1929. Ostensibly works of biography, the two books actually
reflect Tate's cultural and social ideas about the South. Tate
also continued to write poetry, edit works by former Fugitives, and
contribute ideas and essays to the nascent Agrarian movement.
The Agrarians asserted the value of rural, agricultural life, particularly
Southern agricultural life, in the modern industrial world. Given
Tate's family background, this movement must have struck a chord.
His father's business failures, the slow loss of an ancestral inheritance,
and the consequent suffering and disgrace, were the story of the entire
rural Southern aristocracy writ small.
During the Depression Tate and his family lived in Clarksville, TN,
where Tate's brother had purchased an old house for them. There,
Tate wrote some of his best poetry, including "The Mediterranean".
Tate also finished his Civil War novel, The Fathers, in 1938.
The novel was a critical, but not a popular, success. The family
moved frequently for the next thirteen years, but in 1951 Tate found
a position at the University of Minnesota. They remained in Minnesota
until he retired, although Tate and Gordon divorced in 1959. After
the divorce, Tate remarried and started a second family. When he retired
in 1968, Tate and his new wife and children returned to Tennessee, where
he remained until his death in 1979.
Tate wore so many hats it is difficult to categorize him. He
made significant contributions as a poet, editor, critic, translator,
and teacher. His interest in the value of tradition, the
collapse of order and meaning in the modern world, and the need to recreate
a new order rooted in the past is evident in his poetry, essays, books,
and literary criticism.
--Jennifer Duke-Sylvester
References:
- Hart, James A. “Allen Tate.” Dictionary of
Literary Biography, Volume 45, Peter Quartermain, ed. Detroit:
Gale Research Company, 1986.
- Jones, James T. “Allen Tate.” Dictionary
of Literary Biography, Volume 63, Gregory S. Jay, ed. Detroit:
Gale Research Company, 1988.
- Wilkie, Everett C, Jr. “Allen Tate.”
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 4, Karen Lane Rood, ed.
Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1980.
Primary Bibliography:
- The Golden Mean and Other Poems, privately printed, 1923
- Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier, A Narrative, Minton,
Balch, 1928
- Mr. Pope and Other Poems, Minton, Balch, 1928
- Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall, a Biographical Narrative,
Minton, Balch, 1929
- Ode to the Confederate Dead, Being the Revised and Final Version
of a Poem Previously Published on Several Occasions; To Which Are
Added Message From Abroad and The Cross, Minton, Balch, 1930
- Poems: 1928-1931, Scribners, 1932
- The Mediterranean and Other Poems, Alcestis Press, 1936
- Reactionary Essays on Poetry and Ideas, Scribners, 1936
- Selected Poems, Scribners, 1937
- The Fathers, Putnam's , 1938
- Reason in Madness: Critical Essays, Putnam's, 1941
- Sonnets at Christmas, Cummington Press, 1941
- Invitation to Learning, Random House, 1941
- The Winter Sea: A Book of Poems, Cummington Press, 1944
- Fragment of a Meditation/MCMXXVIII, Cummington Press, 1947
- Poems, 1920-1945, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947
- On the Limits of Poetry: Selected Essays, 1928-1948, Swallow/Morrow,
1948
- Poems, 1922-1947, Scribners, 1948
- The Hovering Fly and Other Essays, Cummington Press, 1948
- Two Conceits for the Eye to Sing, If Possible, Cummington
Press, 1950
- The Forlorn Demon: Didactic and Critical Essays, Regnery,
1953
- The Man of Letters in the Modern World, Selected Essays: 1928-1955,
Meridian, 1955
- Collected Essays, Swallow, 1959; revised as Essays of
Four Decades, Swallow, 1968
- Poems, Scribners, 1960
- Christ and the Unicorn, Cummington Press, 1966
- Mere Literature and the Lost Traveller, George Peabody College
for Teachers, 1969
- The Swimmers and Other Selected Poems, Oxford U Press, 1970
- The Translation of Poetry, Library of Congress, 1972
- Memoirs and Opinions, 1926-1974, Swallow, 1975; republished
as Memoirs & Essays Old and New, 1926-1974, Carcanet, 1976
- Collected Poems, 1919-1976, Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
1977
Correspondence:
- Fain, John Tyree, and Thomas Daniel Young, editors. The Literary
Correspondence of Donald Davidson and Allen Tate. Athens: University
of Georgia Press, 1974
- Young, Thomas Daniel, and John J. Hindle, editors. The Republic
of Letters in America: The Correspondence of John Peale Bishop & Allen
Tate. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1981
- Young, Thomas Daniel, and Elizabeth Sarcone, editors. The Lytle-Tate
Letters: The Correspondence of Andrew Lytle and Allen Tate. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, 1987
- Dunaway, John M., editor. Exiles and Fugitives: The Letters of
Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, Allen Tate, and Caroline Gordon.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992
- Vinh, Alphonse, editor. Cleanth Brooks and Allen Tate: Collected
Letters, 1933-1976. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998
Secondary Bibliography:
Bibliography:
- Fallwell, Marshall. Allen Tate: A Bibliography. New York:
D. Lewis, 1969
Biography:
- Doreski, William. The Years of Our Friendship: Robert Lowell
and Allen Tate. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1990
- Squires, Radcliffe. Allen Tate: A Literary Biography. New
York: Pegasus, 1971
- Sullivan, Walter. Allen Tate: A Recollection. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1988
- Underwood, Thomas A. Allen Tate: Orphan of the South. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000
Criticism:
- Arnold, Willard Burdett. The Social Ideas of Allen Tate.
Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1955
- Bishop, Ferman. Allen Tate. New York: Twayne Publishers,
1967
- Brinkmeyer, Robert H. Three Catholic Writers of the Modern South.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985
- Carrithers, Gale H. Mumford, Tate, Eiseley: Watchers in the Night.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991
- Dupree, Robert S. Allen Tate and the Augustinian Imagination:
A Study of the Poetry. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1983
- Hammer, Langdon. Hart Crane and Allen Tate: Janus-Faced Modernism.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993
- Hemphill, George. Allen Tate. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1964
- Huff, Peter A. Allen Tate and the Catholic Revival: Trace of
the Fugitive Gods. New York: Paulist Press, 1996
- Jancovich, Mark. The Cultural Politics of the New Criticism.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993
- Malvasi, Mark G. The Unregenerate South: The Agrarian Thought
of John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Donald Davidson. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1997
- Meiners, R. K. The Last Alternatives: A Study of the Works of
Allen Tate. Denver: A. Swallow, 1963
- ___. Everything to Be Endured: An Essay on Robert Lowell and
Modern Poetry. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1970
- Schöpp, Joseph C. Allen Tate: Tradition Als Bauprinzip Dualistischen
Dichtens. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag H. Grundmann, 1975
- Squires, Radcliffe. Allen Tate and His Work: Critical Evaluations.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972
- Stewart, John L. The Burden of Time: The Fugitives and Agrarians;
the Nashville Groups of the 1920's and 1930's, and the Writing of
John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965
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