The Harvard Advocate
Encyclopedia
The Harvard Advocate, the literary magazine
of Harvard College
, is the oldest continuously published college literary magazine in the United States
. The magazine (published then in newspaper
format) was founded by Charles S. Gage and William G. Peckham in 1866 and, except for a hiatus during the last years of World War II
, has published continuously since then. Its current offices are a two-story wood-frame house at 21 South Street, near Harvard Square
and the University campus.
newspaper, the Collegian. The magazine originally avoided controversial topics, lest it be shut down by university authorities; by the time the editors were making the then-radical demand for coeducation
at Harvard, the magazine had attracted the support of James Russell Lowell
and Oliver Wendell Holmes
, and its life was less precarious.
The founding in 1873 of The Harvard Crimson
newspaper (originally the Magenta), and in 1876, of the Harvard Lampoon
humor magazine, led the Advocate by the 1880s to devote itself to essays, fiction, and poetry.
Over the years, the undergraduate editors of and contributors to the Advocate have gone on to later fame, literary and otherwise. Theodore Roosevelt
edited the magazine in 1880. Edwin Arlington Robinson
, Wallace Stevens
, E. E. Cummings
, and T. S. Eliot
all published their undergraduate poetry in the Advocate. Before the Second World War, undergraduates who worked on the Advocate included Malcolm Cowley
, James Agee
, Robert Fitzgerald
, Leonard Bernstein
, James Laughlin
(who got into trouble with local police for publishing a racy story by Henry Miller
) and Norman Mailer
.
, and resumed publication with its April 1947 issue. Editors after the war included Daniel Ellsberg
. The post-war Advocate published undergraduate and/or graduate work by Richard Wilbur
, Robert Bly
, John Ashbery
, Donald Hall
, Frank O'Hara
, John Hawkes, Harold Brodkey
, Kenneth Koch
and Jonathan Kozol
as well as illustrations by Edward Gorey
. Contributors from outside Harvard during this time included Ezra Pound
, William Carlos Williams
, and Archibald MacLeish
.
Other contributors after World War II included Adrienne Rich
(the first woman to publish regularly in the magazine), Howard Nemerov
, Marianne Moore
, Robert Lowell
, Tom Wolfe
, James Atlas
, and Sallie Bingham
.
Some recent alumni of note include novelists Louis Begley
, Peter Gadol
, Lev Grossman
, Benjamin Kunkel
, and Francine Prose
, poets Carl Phillips
and Frederick Seidel
, biographer and critic Jean Strouse
, journalists Elif Batuman
and Timothy Noah
, literary scholar Peter Brooks
, editors Jonathan Galassi
and Susan Morrison, businessmen Steve Ballmer
and Thomas A. Stewart
, and writer and video game developer Austin Grossman
.
The Harvard Advocate Anniversary Anthology (1986) was published in conjunction with the 120th year of the magazine's publication and Harvard's 350th anniversary. The anthology reproduced actual pages and artwork published in the magazine, introducing each literary era with a brief historical overview.
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
of Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
, is the oldest continuously published college literary magazine in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The magazine (published then in newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
format) was founded by Charles S. Gage and William G. Peckham in 1866 and, except for a hiatus during the last years of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, has published continuously since then. Its current offices are a two-story wood-frame house at 21 South Street, near Harvard Square
Harvard Square
Harvard Square is a large triangular area in the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. It is the historic center of Cambridge...
and the University campus.
Founding and early years
When the Advocate was founded, it adopted the motto Dulce est Periculum (Danger is Sweet) which had been used by an earlier HarvardHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
newspaper, the Collegian. The magazine originally avoided controversial topics, lest it be shut down by university authorities; by the time the editors were making the then-radical demand for coeducation
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
at Harvard, the magazine had attracted the support of James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...
and Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...
, and its life was less precarious.
The founding in 1873 of The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
newspaper (originally the Magenta), and in 1876, of the Harvard Lampoon
Harvard Lampoon
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.-Overview:Published since 1876, The Harvard Lampoon is the world's longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor...
humor magazine, led the Advocate by the 1880s to devote itself to essays, fiction, and poetry.
Over the years, the undergraduate editors of and contributors to the Advocate have gone on to later fame, literary and otherwise. Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
edited the magazine in 1880. Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.- Biography :Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870...
, Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
, E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
, and T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
all published their undergraduate poetry in the Advocate. Before the Second World War, undergraduates who worked on the Advocate included Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.-Early life:...
, James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, Robert Fitzgerald
Robert Fitzgerald
Robert Stuart Fitzgerald was a poet, critic and translator whose renderings of the Greek classics "became standard works for a generation of scholars and students." He was best known as a translator of ancient Greek and Latin...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, James Laughlin
James Laughlin
James Laughlin was an American poet and literary book publisher who founded New Directions Publishers.- Biography :He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Hughart and Marjory Rea Laughlin...
(who got into trouble with local police for publishing a racy story by Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
) and Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
.
Post World War II
The Advocate suspended publication during the years of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and resumed publication with its April 1947 issue. Editors after the war included Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
. The post-war Advocate published undergraduate and/or graduate work by Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....
, Robert Bly
Robert Bly
Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...
, John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
, Donald Hall
Donald Hall
Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...
, Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
, John Hawkes, Harold Brodkey
Harold Brodkey
Harold Brodkey, born Aaron Roy Weintraub was an American writer, and novelist.-Life:Brodkey was raised in University City, Missouri outside St. Louis...
, Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77...
and Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States. Kozol graduated from Noble and Greenough School in 1954, and Harvard University summa cum laude in 1958 with a degree in English Literature. He was awarded a Rhodes...
as well as illustrations by Edward Gorey
Edward Gorey
Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.-Early life:...
. Contributors from outside Harvard during this time included Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
, and Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
.
Other contributors after World War II included Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
(the first woman to publish regularly in the magazine), Howard Nemerov
Howard Nemerov
Howard Nemerov was an American poet. He was twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1963 to 1964, and again from 1988 to 1990. He received the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize for The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov...
, Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
, Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
, Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
, James Atlas
James Atlas
James Atlas , is the president of Atlas & Company, publishers, and founding editor of the Penguin Lives Series.A Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and onetime contributor to The New Yorker, he was an editor at The New York Times Magazine for many years.He has edited volumes of poetry and has...
, and Sallie Bingham
Sallie Bingham
Sallie Bingham is an American author, playwright, poet, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.Sallie Bingham’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961. It was followed by four collections of short stories; her latest, published by Sarabande Books in October 2011, is titled...
.
Some recent alumni of note include novelists Louis Begley
Louis Begley
Louis Begley is an American novelist.-Early life:Begley was born Ludwik Begleiter in Stryj at the time part of Poland and now in Ukraine, as the only child of a physician...
, Peter Gadol
Peter Gadol
Peter Gadol is an American author. Gadol was born on April 15, 1964 and grew up in Westfield, New Jersey. He received an A.B. magna cum laude in English and American Literature from Harvard College in 1986...
, Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist, notably the author of the novels Warp , Codex , The Magicians and The Magician King...
, Benjamin Kunkel
Benjamin Kunkel
Benjamin Kunkel is an American novelist. He co-founded and is a co-editor of the journal n+1. His first novel, Indecision, was published in 2005.-Background and education:...
, and Francine Prose
Francine Prose
Francine Prose is an American writer. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991....
, poets Carl Phillips
Carl Phillips
Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis....
and Frederick Seidel
Frederick Seidel
-Career:In 1962, his first book, Final Solutions, was chosen by a jury of Louise Bogan, Stanley Kunitz, and Robert Lowell for an award sponsored by the 92nd Street Y, with a $1,500 prize...
, biographer and critic Jean Strouse
Jean Strouse
Jean Strouse is an American biographer, editor and critic. She is best known for her biographies of diarist Alice James and financier J. Pierpont Morgan....
, journalists Elif Batuman
Elif Batuman
Elif Batuman is an American author, academic, and journalist.She won a 2010 Whiting Writers' Award.-Life:Born in New York to Turkish parents, she grew up in New Jersey. She graduated from Harvard College, and received her doctorate in comparative literature from Stanford University, where she...
and Timothy Noah
Timothy Noah
Timothy Robert Noah is an American journalist. He is a senior editor of The New Republic, where he writes the TRB column and a political blog...
, literary scholar Peter Brooks
Peter Brooks
Peter Brooks is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Yale University and Andrew W. Mellon Scholar in the department of Comparative Literature and the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He is formerly Professor in the Department of English and School of Law at the...
, editors Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi born in Seattle, Washington, is the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, one of the eight major publishers in New York. He began his publishing career at Houghton Mifflin in Boston, moved to Random House in New York, and finally, to Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He...
and Susan Morrison, businessmen Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
and Thomas A. Stewart
Thomas A. Stewart
Thomas A. Stewart is the Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer of Booz & Company, a global management consulting firm. Prior to joining Booz & Company, he was the editor and managing director of Harvard Business Review from 2002-2008...
, and writer and video game developer Austin Grossman
Austin Grossman
Austin Grossman [b. ] is a writer and game designer who has contributed to the New York Times and a number of video games.He is the author of the novel Soon I Will Be Invincible, which was published by Pantheon Books in 2007....
.
The Harvard Advocate Anniversary Anthology (1986) was published in conjunction with the 120th year of the magazine's publication and Harvard's 350th anniversary. The anthology reproduced actual pages and artwork published in the magazine, introducing each literary era with a brief historical overview.