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Mark Van Doren

 
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Mark Van Doren
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Van Doren, Mark 1894-1973, American poet and critic, b. Hope, Vermilion co., Ill., grad. Univ. of Illinois, 1914, Ph.D. Columbia, 1920; brother of Carl Van Doren. He taught English at Columbia (1920-59), where he was a renowned and dedicated teacher. He was also on the staff of the Nation (1924-28, 1935-38). With Carl Van Doren he wrote American and British Literature since 1890 (1939). He wrote critical studies of various authors, including John Dryden (1920) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1949), compiled several anthologies, and collected his lectures on poetry in The Noble Voice (1946). As a poet Van Doren was deeply influenced by Wordsworth. Among his volumes of poems are Collected Poems, 1922-1938 (1939; Pulitzer Prize) and Morning Worship and Other Poems (1959). Other writings include novels and a play, The Last Days of Lincoln (1959). He also wrote the influential Liberal Education (1943).

Bibliography

See his collected stories (3 vol., 1962-68) and collected poems (1963 and 1969); his autobiography (1958); the memoirs of his wife, Dorothy Graffe Van Doren, The Professor and I (1959).

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Works: Works by Mark Van Doren
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(1894-1972)

1924Spring Thunder, and Other Poems. The novelist, critic, and poet's first collection is made up of mainly pastoral poems celebrating his Connecticut home, the same themes he would continue in his next two collections, 7 p.m. and Other Poems (1926) and Now the Sky and Other Poems (1928). Van Doren served as literary editor and film critic for the Nation during the 1920s.
1931Jonathan Gentry. Van Doren's narrative poem follows five generations of an American family through the nineteenth century.
1931The Group Theatre is formed by Harold Clurman (1901-1980), Cheryl Crawford (1902-1986), and Lee Strasburg (1901-1982), former associates of the Theatre Guild who wanted to create an acting and production company to present more politically and socially relevant works. Their first production is Paul Green's The House of Connelly; their first major success is Sidney Kingsley's Men in White (1933). The company produced all of the plays of Clifford Odets, a former actor in the company. The Group Theatre disbanded in 1941.
1939End of Federal Theatre Project. The project is abolished by Congress after conservatives repeatedly charge that the New Deal program, established in 1935 to provide work for theatrical professionals affected by the Depression, promulgates left-wing propaganda.
1939Collected Poems, 1922-1938. Van Doren's compilation from his six previous volumes and additional new poems wins the Pulitzer Prize.
1941The Mayfield Deer. This long blank-verse narrative retells an American frontier legend of the feud that ensues when a boy shoots a lonely hunter's pet deer.
1944The Seven Sleepers, and Other Poems. This collection features the group of war poems entitled "Our Lady Peace," as well as meditations on humanity's fate.
1946The Country New Year. In a seeming intentional contrast to the contemporary scene, the poet offers the assurance of natural permanence and continuity in this collection of pastoral lyrics arranged by season.
1948New Poems. A collection of over one hundred poems on a wide range of subjects and styles, from philosophical meditations to lullabies.

Quotes By: Mark Van Doren
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"Wit is the only wall between us and the dark."

Wikipedia: Mark Van Doren
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Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and critic.

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Life

He was born in the town of Hope in Vermilion County, Illinois. The son of the county's doctor, he was raised on his family's farm in eastern Illinois. He was the younger brother of the academic Carl Van Doren. Mark Van Doren earned a B.A. from the University of Illinois in 1914 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1920.

Van Doren then taught at Columbia from 1920 to 1959,[1] and twice served on the staff of The Nation. His students at Columbia included the poets John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, and Robert Lax as well as the Japanologist and interpreter of Japanese literature Donald Keene, author and activist Whittaker Chambers, and writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton. Van Doren helped Ginsberg avoid jail time in June 1949 by testifying on his behalf when Ginsberg was arrested as an accessory to crimes carried out by Herbert Huncke and others, and was an important influence on Merton, both in Merton's conversion to Catholicism and Merton's poetry. Since 1962, students of Columbia College have honored a great teacher at the school each year with the Mark Van Doren Award. He was a strong advocate of liberal education.[2]

Mark Van Doren married the novelist Dorothy Graffe Van Doren in 1922. Their son, Charles Van Doren (born February 12, 1926), briefly achieved renown as the winner of the rigged game show Twenty-One. In the film Quiz Show, Mark Van Doren was played by Paul Scofield, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance.[3]

Mark Van Doren died in Torrington, Connecticut, aged 78.

His correspondence with Allen Tate is at Vanderbilt University.[4]

Bibliography

Search Wikisource Wikisource has original works written by or about: Mark Van Doren

Poetry:

  • Spring Thunder (1924)
  • (editor) An Anthology of World Poetry (1928)
  • Jonathan Gentry (1931)
  • Winter Diary (1935)
  • Collected Poems 1922–1938 (1939), Winner of the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  • The Mayfield Deer (1941)
  • The Last Days of Lincoln, a play in six scenes (1959), a Verse Play
  • Our Lady Peace
  • The Story-Teller (N/A)
  • Collected and New Poems 1924–1963 (1963)

Novels:

  • The Transients (1935)
  • Windless Cabins (1940)
  • Tilda (1943)

Nonfiction:

  • The Poetry of John Dryden (1920)
  • Introduction to Bartram's Travels (1928)
  • American and British Literature Since 1890 (1939), with Carl Van Doren
  • Shakespeare (1939)
  • The Liberal Education (1943)
  • The Noble Voice (1946)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne (1949)
  • Introduction to Poetry (1951)
  • The Autobiography Of Mark Van Doren (1958)
  • The Happy Critic (1961)
  • George Hendrick, ed (1987). The Selected Letters of Mark Van Doren. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 

Discography:

Reviews

This well-edited, attractive selection (about one-fourth of the surviving letters) brings Mark Van Doren alive, especially to those who knew him and can hear the voice behind the written words. It should help criticism begin to engage the works and personality of a very considerable American "man of letters": superb poet and critic, wide-ranging editor, accomplished storyteller and playwright, and devoted educator.[5]

References

  1. ^ "Mark Van doren", Columbia 250
  2. ^ "Mark Van Doren", Faculty Profiles
  3. ^ http://www.nnp.org/nni/Publications/Dutch-American/vandorenm.html
  4. ^ http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/pdf/tate_doren.pdf
  5. ^ "Mark Van Doren's Literary Letters". Virginia Quarterly Review: 756–764. Autumn 1989. http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1989/autumn/kahn-mark-van-dorens/. 

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mark Van Doren".  Read more