Description
Description
The collection consists of manuscripts, documents, and correspondence of Tate, a leading member of the Fugitive and Southern Agrarian literary movements. Among the manuscripts are typed drafts of The Fathers, galleys and page proofs for On the Limits of Poetry, a draft of an unfinished biography of Robert E. Lee, and drafts and printer's copies of Poems 1920-1945: A Selection, as well as addresses, essays, and poems. Tate corresponded with many well-known poets and authors, including John Berryman, Hart Crane, e. e. cummings, T. S. Eliot, John Gould Fletcher, F. O. Matthiessen, Ezra Pound, John Crowe Ransom, Theodore Roethke, Delmore Schwartz, Karl Shapiro, Louis Untermeyer, Mark Van Doren, Robert Penn Warren, John Hall Wheelock, Oscar Williams, William Carlos Williams, Edmund Wilson, Yvor Winters, and Stark Young. In addition to Tate's own works, the collection contains poetry manuscripts by Princeton students and graduates, which Tate selected for his anthology Princeton Verse Between Two Wars, and an early draft, entitled "Proud Flesh," of All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.
Collection Creator
Biography
(John Orley) Allen Tate (1899-1979), poet, critic, and professor of letters from the American South, was born on November 19 in Winchester, Kentucky. In 1918, he was admitted to Vanderbilt University, where he excelled, earning top honors and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He became the only undergraduate admitted to membership in the Fugitives, an informal group of Southern intellectuals which exerted considerable influence on American letters throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In 1924, Tate married Caroline Gordon, a novelist. They had one child, and he later divorced her to marry Isabella Stewart Gardner. He then divorced Gardner to marry Helen Heinz, with whom he had three children.
Though he lived in France from 1928-1932 in the company of such writers as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, Tate continued to focus his writings on Southern themes. He published numerous volumes of poetry and prose, including one novel, The Fathers (1938). He was a visiting professor and lecturer at universities throughout the country, including the University of Chicago and Princeton University. He was also a Fulbright professor at the University of Rome and at Oxford University. He was a member of many societies, including the National Institute of Arts and Letters, of which he was president from 1968-1969, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Southern Historical Association, the Princeton Club, and the Authors Club of London. He won numerous awards, including Guggenheim fellowships, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the National Medal of Literature, and multiple honorary degrees. He died on February 9, 1979 in Nashville, Tennessee.
1899Born on November 19 in Winchester, Kentucky1922Graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University1923
The Golden Mean, and Other Poems1924Married Caroline Gordon1928
Mr. Pope, and Other Poems1928
Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier1928-1929Guggenheim fellowships1929
Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall1930
Three Poems: Ode to the Confederate Dead, Message from Abroad, The Cross1932
Poems: 1928-19311934-1936Professor at Southwestern College1936
The Mediterranean and Other Poems1936
Reactionary Essays on Poetry and Ideas1937
Selected Poems1938
The Fathers1938-1939Professor at the Women's College of the University of North Carolina1939-1942Princeton University poet in residence1941
Sonnets at Christmas1941
Reason in Madness: Critical Essays1943-1944Library of Congress Chair of Poetry1944
The Winter Sea1944-1946Editor of
Sewanee Review1947
Fragment of a Meditation\MCMXXVIII1947-1951Professor at New York University1948National Institute of Arts and Letters Award1948
Poems: 1920-19451948
Poems: 1922-19471948
On the Limits of Poetry: Selected Essays, 1928-19481948
The Hovering Fly and Other Essays1950
Two Conceits for the Eye to Sing, If Possible1951-1968Professor at the University of Minnesota1953
The Forlorn Demon: Didactic and Critical Essays1953-1954Fulbright professor at the University of Rome1955
The Man of Letters in the Modern World: Selected Essays1956Bollingen Prize for Poetry1958-1959Fulbright professor at Oxford University1959Divorced Caroline Gordon; married Isabella Stewart Gardner1959
Collected Essays1960
Poems1961Brandeis University Medal for Poetry1962Gold medal from Dante Society1963Academy of American Poets Award1966Divorced Isabella Stewart Gardner; married Helen Heinz1966
Christ and the Unicorn1968-1969President of the National Institute of Arts and Letters1969
Mere Literature and the Lost Traveller1970
The Swimmers and Other Selected Poems1972
The Translation of Poetry1975
Memoirs and Opinions, 1926-19741976Oscar Williams Award1976Mark Rothco Award1976Ingram Merrill Award1976National Medal for Literature1977
Collected Poems, 1919-19761979Died on February 9 in Nashville, Tennessee
Princeton University Library Finding Aids 
View Entire Finding Aid
Download Finding Aid