Mark Van Doren

Mark Van Doren (1894-1972). Courtesy Climbing Sky.

Mark Van Doren
Born	June 13, 1894(1894-Template:MONTHNUMBER-13) Hope, Vermilion County, Illinois
Died	December10, 1972(1972-Template:MONTHNUMBER-10) (aged 78) Torrington, Connecticut
Occupation	poet, literary critic, academic
Alma mater	University of Illinois Columbia University
Notable work(s)	Shakespeare (1939) A Liberal Education (1943)
Notable award(s)	Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Collected Poems 1922-1938
Spouse(s)	Dorothy Graffe Van Doren
Children	Charles Van Doren John Van Doren
Relative(s)	Carl Van Doren (brother)
Influenced Thomas Merton, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Whittaker Chambers, Lionel Trilling, Robert Giroux

Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 - December 10, 1972) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, prose writer, and literary critic.

Life

Overview

For nearly 40 years Van Doren was a professor of English at Columbia University, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, John Berryman, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He remained literary editor of The Nation, in New York City (1924–28), and its film critic, 1935 to 1938.

Youth and education

Van Doren was born in the town of Hope in Vermilion County, Illinois, the 4th of 5 sons of the county's doctor, Charles Lucius Van Doren, of remote Dutch ancestry, and wife Eudora Ann (Butz). He was raised on his family's farm in eastern Illinois, before his father decided to move to the neighboring town of Urbana, to be closer to good schools.

Mark was the younger brother of academic and biographer Carl Van Doren, starting with whom, all 5 brothers attended the local elementary school and high school, and eventually joined the University of Illinois also in the town.

Mark Van Doren earned a B.A. from the University of Illinois in 1914 and a Ph.D. from what became the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University in 1920.

Career

Van Doren joined Columbia University faculty in 1920; his entry was easy as he was preceded by his brother and noted author, Carl.

He went on to become one of its greatest teachers, and a "legendary classroom presence". He attained full professorship in 1942, and taught English until 1959; later he remained professor emeritus, 1959-1972

His students at Columbia included poets and writers John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Louis Simpson, Richard Howard, Lionel Trilling (later a colleague), Robert Lax, and Anthony Robinson, as well as Japanologist and interpreter of Japanese literature Donald Keene, author and activist Whittaker Chambers, writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton, Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., and poet-critic John Hollander.

"I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds."

Mark Van Doren (Newsweek, 1959)

He twice served on the staff of The Nation during the 1920s and 1930s. He was a member of the Society for the Prevention of World War III.

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.

He was a strong advocate of liberal education, and wrote the book, The Liberal Education (1943), which helped promote the influential "great books" movement. Starting in 1941, he also was a regular on Invitation to Learning, a CBS radio show, where as an expert he discussed great literature.

He was made a fellow in American letters of the Library of Congress, and also served as president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Private life

In 1922 Van Doren married novelist Dorothy Graffe Van Doren, whom he had earlier met at The Nation. His successful book, Anthology of World Poetry, enabled the couple to buy a house on Bleecker Street in New York City in February 1929, before markets collapsed. Mrs. Van Doren wrote the memoir, The Professor and I, in 1959).

Their son, Charles Van Doren (born February 12, 1926), briefly achieved renown as the winner of the rigged game show Twenty-One. Their 2nd son is John Van Doren who also lives in Cornwall, Connecticut at the farmstead, where their father did most of his writing between academic years, and where he moved after retirement.

Mark Van Doren died in Torrington, Connecticut, aged 78, 2 days after undergoing surgery for circulatory problems at the Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. He was interred at Cornwall Hollow Cemetery.

Writing

Virgina Quarterly Review, "Mark Van Doren's Literary Letters": "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."

Quotes

• "The literature of the world has exerted its power by being translated."
• "Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth."
• "The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery."

Recognition

Van Doren won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1940 for his Collected Poems.

Since 1962, students of Columbia College have honored a great teacher at the school each year with the "Mark Van Doren Award".

Lion: A memoir of Mark Van Doren (1991), by Dan Wakefield, won the 1992 Cohen Awards.

In popular culture

In the film Quiz Show (1994), Mark Van Doren was played by Paul Scofield, who earned an Academy Award nomination in Best Supporting Actor category for his performance.

A Canadian alternative rock band named itself after Van Doren's poem, "Our Lady Peace".

Publications

Poetry

• Spring Thunder, and other poems. New York: T. Seltzer, 1924.
• Jonathan Gentry. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1931.
• A Winter Diary, and other poems. New York: Macauley, 1935; Macmillan, 1935.
• Collected Poems, 1922-1938. New York: Holt, 1939.
• The Mayfield Deer. New York & San Francisco: Holt, 1941.
• New Poems. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948.
• Spring Birth, and other poems. New York: Holt, 1953.
• Selected poems. New York: Holt, 1954.
• Morning Worship, and other poems. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960.
• Collected and New Poems, 1924-1963. New York: Hill & Wang, 1963.
• Narrative Poems. New York: Hill & Wang, 1964.
• Mark Van Doren: 100 poems. New York: Hill & Wang, 1967.
• That Shining Place: New poems. New York: Hill & Wang, 1969.
• Good Morning: Last poems. New York: Hill & Wang, 1973.

Plays

• The Last Days of Lincoln: A play in six scenes. New York: Hill & Wang, 1959.
• Three Plays. New York, Hill & Wang, 1966.

Novels

• The Transients. New York: W. Morrow, 1935.
• Windless Cabins. New York: Holt, 1940.
• Tilda. New York: Holt, 1943.

Short fiction

• Short Stories. New York: Abelard Press, 1950.
• Nobody Say a Word, and other stories. New York: Holt, 1953.
• Home with Hazel, and other stories. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1957.
• Collected Stories. New York: Hill & Wang, 1962-68.

Non-fiction

• Henry David Thoreau: A critical study. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916.
• The Poetry of John Dryden. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Howe, 1920; Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2005.
• Edwin Arlington Robinson. New York: Literary Guild of America, 1927.
• An Autobiography of America. New York, A. & C. Boni, 1929.
• American poets, 1630-1930. Boston: Little, Brown, 1932.
• American and British Literature Since 1890 (by Carl and Mark Van Doren). New York & London: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1939.
• Shakespeare. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1939.
• The Private Reader: Selected articles and reviews. New York: Holt, 1942.
• Liberal Education. New York: Holt, 1943.
• The night of the summer solstice, and other stories of the Russian war. New York: Holt, 1943.
• John Dryden: A study of his poetry. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1946.
• The Noble Voice: A study of ten great poems. New York: Holt, 1946.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: W. Sloan Associates, 1949.
• Introduction to Poetry. New York: Sloan, 1951
  • also published as Introduction to Poetry: Commentaries on 30 poems. New York, Hill & Wang, 1966.
• Autobiography. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958.
• Don Quixote's Profession. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1960.
• Four Poets on Poetry (by Richard P. Blackmur, Yvor Winters, Marianne Moore, & Mark Van Doren; edited by Don Cameron Allen). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959.
• The Happy Critic, and other essays. New York: Hill & Wang, 1961.
• On Great Poems of Western Literature. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
• Essays, 1924-1972. (selected with introduction by William Claire). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.

Edited

• Oxford Book of American Prose. Oxford University Press, 1932.
• An Anthology of World Poetry. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1936.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Portable Emerson. New York: Viking, 1946.

Letters

• Selected Letters (edited by George Hendrick). Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat .

Mark Van Doren - Morning Worship

Audio/video

• Mark Van Doren Reads from His Collected and New Poems (LP). Folkways Records, 1967.

See also

• List of U.S. poets
• List of literary critics

References

• J.T. Ledbetter, Mark Van Doren. Peter Lang, 1996. ISBN 0820433349.

External links

Poems

• "Our Lady Peace"
• "Morning Worship"
• Sonnets by Mark Van Doren
• Mark Van Doren at PoemHunter (10 poems)

Quotes

• Mark Van Doren quotes at BrainyQuote

Books

• Mark Van Doren at Amazon.com

About

• Mark Van Doren in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Mark Van Doren at NNDB
• Mark Van Doren and Shakespeare; Columbia College Today, September 2005 (retrieved May 24, 2009)
• Mark Van Doren & American classicism.
• Mark Van Doren at Find a Grave