Allen Tate was
born in Winchester, Clarke County, Kentucky, on November 19,
1899. His schooling was desultory, with a year at a school in
Nashville, three years at one in Louisville, a half year each at
two public schools, a final year at a preparatory school in
Washington, D.C. He entered Vanderbilt University in 1919. His
readings in philosophy and literature were sufficiently varied
to impress John Crowe Ransom, from whom he took two courses and
the sense of a way of life. Tate, and later his roommate Robert
Penn Warren, were the two undergraduates favored by an
invitation to join an adult group who met to discuss poetry and
other subjects in Nashville. they called themselves the
Fugitives and published a magazine, The Fugitive, to
which Tate contributed a number of poems. One of these brought
him a letter from Hart Crane, who thought he detected in it the
influence of Eliot. A long and momentous friendship then began.
Because of a
skirmish with tuberculosis, Tate had to take his degree a year
later, in 1923. He then did some school teaching in West
Virginia, but moved on to New York in the hope of a writing
career. to make ends meet he worked on a semi-pornographic
magazine called Telling Tales. He had meanwhile married
Caroline Gordon, also a writer, and they moved to a large house
in Patterson, New York, in late 1925 to pursue their writing
careers. Hart Crane was invited to stay with them and remained
for several months, but the quarrel over his housekeeping chores
--- which he could not abide --- led to his departure.
The Tates moved
back to live in Greenwich Village after a year in Patterson.
Allen Tate became a well-known and highly respected figure in
the literary world. He edited the Sewanee Review from
1944 to 1946. In 1950 he became a Roman Catholic. From 1951
until his retirement in 1968 he was a professor of English at
the University of Minnesota.
__________
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O'Clair, Modern Poems: An
Introduction to
Poetry. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1973, pp.242-243.
