Allen Tate
Encyclopedia
John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
from 1943 to 1944.
to John Orley Tate, a businessman, and Eleanor Parke Custis Varnell. In 1916 and 1917 Tate studied the violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music
.
He began attending Vanderbilt University
in 1918, where he met fellow poet Robert Penn Warren
. Warren and Tate were invited to join a group of young Southern poets under the leadership of John Crowe Ransom
; the group were known as the Fugitive Poets and later as the Southern Agrarians
. Tate contributed to the group's magazine The Fugitive and to the agrarian
manifesto I'll Take My Stand published in 1930, and this was followed in 1938 by Who Owns America? Tate also joined Ransom to teach at Kenyon College
in Gambier, Ohio
.
In 1924, Tate moved to New York City
where he met poet Hart Crane
, with whom he had been exchanging correspondence for some time. During a summer visit with Warren in Kentucky
, he began a relationship with writer Caroline Gordon
. They married in New York in May 1925. Their daughter Nancy was born in September. In 1928, along with others of the Village crowd, he went to Europe. In London he visited with T.S. Eliot, whose poetry and criticism he greatly admired, and he also visited Paris. After two years abroad, he returned to the United States, and in 1930 was back in Tennesseee. Here he took up residence in an antebellum mansion with 85 acre estate attached, that had been bought for him by one of his brothers, "who had made a lot of northern money out of coal." He resumed his senior position with the Fugitives. He devoted most of his time to promoting "the principles of Agrarianism."
Just before leaving for Europe in 1928, Tate described himself to John Gould Fletcher
as "an enforced atheist" Later, he told Fletcher, "I am an atheist, but a religious one — which means that there is no organization for my religion." He regarded secular attempts to develop a system of thought for the modern world as misguided. "Only God," he insisted, "can give the affair a genuine purpose." In his essay "The Fallacy of Humanism" (1929), he criticized the New Humanists
for creating a value system without investing it with any identifiable source of authority. "Religion is the only technique for the validation of values," he wrote. Already attracted to Roman Catholicism, he deferred converting. Louis D. Rubin, Jr. observes that Tate may have waited "because he realized that for him at this time it would be only a strategy, an intellectual act".
Tate and Gordon were divorced in 1945 and remarried in 1946. Though devoted to one another for life, they could not get along and later divorced again.
In 1950, Tate converted to Roman Catholicism.
Tate married the poet Isabella Gardner in the early fifties. While teaching at the University of Minnesota
in Minneapolis, he met Helen Heinz, a nun enrolled in one of his courses, and began an affair with her. Gardner divorced Tate, and he married Heinz in 1966. They moved to Sewanee, Tennessee
. In 1967 Tate became the father of twin sons, John and Michael. Michael died at eleven months from choking on a toy. A third son Benjamin was born in 1969.
where he worked freelance for The Nation
, contributed to the Hound and Horn, Poetry magazine, and others. He worked as a janitor, and lived la vie boheme in Greenwich Village
with Caroline Gordon, and when urban life proved too overwhelming, repaired to "Robber Rocks", a house in Patterson, New York
, with friends Slater Brown and his wife Sue, Hart Crane, and Malcolm Cowley. He would, some years later, contribute to the conservative National Review
.
1928 saw the publication of Tate's most famous poem, "Ode to the Confederate Dead", not to be confused with "Ode to the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery" written by American Civil War
poet and South Carolina
native, Henry Timrod
. In 1928, Tate also published a biography
Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier.
In 1929, Tate published a second biography Jefferson Davis
: His Rise and Fall.
By the 1930s, Tate had returned to Tennessee, where he worked on social commentary influenced by his agrarian
philosophy. In addition to his work on I'll Take My Stand, he published Who Owns America?, which was a conservative
response to Franklin D. Roosevelt
's New Deal
. During this time, Tate also became the de facto associate editor of The American Review
, which was published and edited by Seward Collins
. Tate believed The American Review
could popularize the work of the Southern Agrarians
. He objected to Collins's open support of Fascists Benito Mussolini
and Adolf Hitler
, and condemned fascism
in an article in The New Republic
in 1936. According to the critic Ian Hamilton
however, Tate and his co-agrarians had been more than ready at the time to overlook the anti-Semitism and pro-Hitlerism of the American Review in order to promote their 'spiritual' defence of the Deep South's traditions. And when leftist New York critics pointed out that those traditions included slavery and lynching, Tate was untroubled: "I belong to the white race, therefore I intend to support white rule...lynching will disappear when the white race is satisfied that its supremacy will not be questioned in social crises."
In 1938 Tate published his only novel, The Fathers, which drew upon knowledge of his mother's ancestral home and family in Fairfax County, Virginia
.
Tate was a poet-in-residence at Princeton University
until 1942. He founded the Creative Writing program at Princeton, and mentored Richard Blackmur, John Berryman
, and others. In 1942, Tate assisted novelist and friend Andrew Lytle in transforming The Sewanee Review
, America's oldest literary quarterly, from a modest journal into one of the most prestigious in the nation. Tate and Lytle had attended Vanderbilt together prior to collaborating at The University of the South
.
Tate died in Nashville, Tennessee
. His papers are collected at the Firestone Library at Princeton University.
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the nation's official poet. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of...
from 1943 to 1944.
Life
Tate was born near Winchester, KentuckyWinchester, Kentucky
Winchester is a city in and the county seat of Clark County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 16,724 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Lexington-Fayette, KY Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
to John Orley Tate, a businessman, and Eleanor Parke Custis Varnell. In 1916 and 1917 Tate studied the violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music
Cincinnati Conservatory of Music
The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music was a conservatory, part of a girls' finishing school, founded in 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It merged with the College of Music of Cincinnati in 1955, forming the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, which is now part of the University of Cincinnati.The...
.
He began attending Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
in 1918, where he met fellow poet Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
. Warren and Tate were invited to join a group of young Southern poets under the leadership of John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom was an American poet, essayist, magazine editor, and professor.-Life:...
; the group were known as the Fugitive Poets and later as the Southern Agrarians
Southern Agrarians
The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
. Tate contributed to the group's magazine The Fugitive and to the agrarian
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
manifesto I'll Take My Stand published in 1930, and this was followed in 1938 by Who Owns America? Tate also joined Ransom to teach at Kenyon College
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...
in Gambier, Ohio
Gambier, Ohio
Gambier is a village in Knox County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,871 at the 2000 census.Gambier is the home of Kenyon College and was named after one of Kenyon College's early benefactors, Lord Gambier....
.
In 1924, Tate moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where he met poet Hart Crane
Hart Crane
-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
, with whom he had been exchanging correspondence for some time. During a summer visit with Warren in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, he began a relationship with writer Caroline Gordon
Caroline Gordon
Caroline Ferguson Gordon was a notable American novelist and literary critic who, while still in her thirties, was the recipient of two prestigious literary awards, a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1934 O...
. They married in New York in May 1925. Their daughter Nancy was born in September. In 1928, along with others of the Village crowd, he went to Europe. In London he visited with T.S. Eliot, whose poetry and criticism he greatly admired, and he also visited Paris. After two years abroad, he returned to the United States, and in 1930 was back in Tennesseee. Here he took up residence in an antebellum mansion with 85 acre estate attached, that had been bought for him by one of his brothers, "who had made a lot of northern money out of coal." He resumed his senior position with the Fugitives. He devoted most of his time to promoting "the principles of Agrarianism."
Just before leaving for Europe in 1928, Tate described himself to John Gould Fletcher
John Gould Fletcher
John Gould Fletcher was an Imagist poet and author. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a socially prominent family. After attending Phillips Academy, Andover Fletcher went on to Harvard University from 1903 to 1907, when he dropped out shortly after his father's death.Fletcher lived in...
as "an enforced atheist" Later, he told Fletcher, "I am an atheist, but a religious one — which means that there is no organization for my religion." He regarded secular attempts to develop a system of thought for the modern world as misguided. "Only God," he insisted, "can give the affair a genuine purpose." In his essay "The Fallacy of Humanism" (1929), he criticized the New Humanists
New Humanism
New Humanism or neohumanism were terms applied to a theory of literary criticism, together with its consequences for culture and political thought, developed around 1900 by the American scholar Irving Babbitt, and the scholar and journalist Paul Elmer More...
for creating a value system without investing it with any identifiable source of authority. "Religion is the only technique for the validation of values," he wrote. Already attracted to Roman Catholicism, he deferred converting. Louis D. Rubin, Jr. observes that Tate may have waited "because he realized that for him at this time it would be only a strategy, an intellectual act".
Tate and Gordon were divorced in 1945 and remarried in 1946. Though devoted to one another for life, they could not get along and later divorced again.
In 1950, Tate converted to Roman Catholicism.
Tate married the poet Isabella Gardner in the early fifties. While teaching at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in Minneapolis, he met Helen Heinz, a nun enrolled in one of his courses, and began an affair with her. Gardner divorced Tate, and he married Heinz in 1966. They moved to Sewanee, Tennessee
Sewanee, Tennessee
Sewanee is an unincorporated locality in Franklin County, Tennessee, United States, treated by the U.S. Census as a census-designated place . The population was 2,361 at the 2000 census...
. In 1967 Tate became the father of twin sons, John and Michael. Michael died at eleven months from choking on a toy. A third son Benjamin was born in 1969.
Writings
In 1924, Tate began a four-year sojourn in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where he worked freelance for The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, contributed to the Hound and Horn, Poetry magazine, and others. He worked as a janitor, and lived la vie boheme in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
with Caroline Gordon, and when urban life proved too overwhelming, repaired to "Robber Rocks", a house in Patterson, New York
Patterson, New York
Patterson is a town in Putnam County, New York, United States. The town is in the northeast part of the county. Interstate 84 passes through the southwest part of the town. The population was 11,306 at the 2000 census. The town is named after early farmer Matthew Paterson...
, with friends Slater Brown and his wife Sue, Hart Crane, and Malcolm Cowley. He would, some years later, contribute to the conservative National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
.
1928 saw the publication of Tate's most famous poem, "Ode to the Confederate Dead", not to be confused with "Ode to the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery" written by American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
poet and South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
native, Henry Timrod
Henry Timrod
Henry Timrod was an American poet, often called the poet laureate of the Confederacy.-Biography:Timrod was born on December 8, 1828, in Charleston, South Carolina, to a family of German descent. His grandfather Heinrich Dimroth emigrated to the United States in 1765 and Anglicized his name...
. In 1928, Tate also published a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier.
In 1929, Tate published a second biography Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
: His Rise and Fall.
By the 1930s, Tate had returned to Tennessee, where he worked on social commentary influenced by his agrarian
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
philosophy. In addition to his work on I'll Take My Stand, he published Who Owns America?, which was a conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
response to Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
. During this time, Tate also became the de facto associate editor of The American Review
The American Review
- 19th century :The American Review, alternatively known as The American Review: A Whig Journal and The American Whig Review, was a New York City-based periodical in the 19th century...
, which was published and edited by Seward Collins
Seward Collins
Seward Bishop Collins was an American New York socialite and publisher. By the end of the 1920s, he was a self-described "fascist".-Biography:...
. Tate believed The American Review
The American Review
- 19th century :The American Review, alternatively known as The American Review: A Whig Journal and The American Whig Review, was a New York City-based periodical in the 19th century...
could popularize the work of the Southern Agrarians
Southern Agrarians
The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
. He objected to Collins's open support of Fascists Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, and condemned fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
in an article in The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
in 1936. According to the critic Ian Hamilton
Ian Hamilton (critic)
Robert Ian Hamilton was a British literary critic, reviewer, biographer, poet, magazine editor and publisher....
however, Tate and his co-agrarians had been more than ready at the time to overlook the anti-Semitism and pro-Hitlerism of the American Review in order to promote their 'spiritual' defence of the Deep South's traditions. And when leftist New York critics pointed out that those traditions included slavery and lynching, Tate was untroubled: "I belong to the white race, therefore I intend to support white rule...lynching will disappear when the white race is satisfied that its supremacy will not be questioned in social crises."
In 1938 Tate published his only novel, The Fathers, which drew upon knowledge of his mother's ancestral home and family in Fairfax County, Virginia
Fairfax County, Virginia
Fairfax County is a county in Virginia, in the United States. Per the 2010 Census, the population of the county is 1,081,726, making it the most populous jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with 13.5% of Virginia's population...
.
Tate was a poet-in-residence at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
until 1942. He founded the Creative Writing program at Princeton, and mentored Richard Blackmur, John Berryman
John Berryman
John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...
, and others. In 1942, Tate assisted novelist and friend Andrew Lytle in transforming The Sewanee Review
Sewanee Review
The Sewanee Review is a literary journal established in 1892 and the oldest continuously published periodical of its kind in the United States. It incorporates original fiction and poetry, as well as essays, reviews, and literary criticism...
, America's oldest literary quarterly, from a modest journal into one of the most prestigious in the nation. Tate and Lytle had attended Vanderbilt together prior to collaborating at The University of the South
Sewanee, The University of the South
The University of the South is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Sewanee, Tennessee. It is owned by twenty-eight southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church and its School of Theology is an official seminary of the church. The university's School of Letters offers graduate...
.
Tate died in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. His papers are collected at the Firestone Library at Princeton University.
Poetry collections
- Poems, 1928-1931, 1932.
- The Mediterranean and Other Poems, 1936.
- Selected Poems, 1937.
- The Winter Sea, 1944.
- Poems, 1920-1945, 1947.
- Poems, 1922-1947, 1948.
- Two Conceits for the Eye to Sing, If Possible, 1950.
- Poems, 1960.
- Poems, 1961.
- Collected Poems, 1970.
- The Swimmers and Other Selected Poems, 1970.
Prose collections
- Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier, 1928.
- Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall, 1929.
- Robert E. Lee, 1932.
- Reactionary Essays on Poetry and Ideas, 1936.
- The Fathers, 1938.
- Reason in Madness, 1941.
- On the Limits of Poetry: Selected Essays, 1928-1948, 1948.
- The Hovering Fly, 1949.
- The Forlorn Demon, 1953.
- The Man of Letters in the Modern World, 1955.
- Collected Essays, 1959.
- Essays of Four Decades, 1969.
- Memoirs and Opinions, 1926-1974, 1975.