Allen Tate CURRENTLY AVAILABLE BLOOM’S MAJOR POETS Maya Angelou John Ashbery Elizabeth Bishop William Blake Gwendolyn Brooks Robert Browning Geoffrey Chaucer Sameul Taylor Coleridge Hart Crane E.E. Cummings Dante Emily Dickinson John Donne H.D. Thomas Hardy Seamus Heaney A.E. Housman T. S. Eliot Robert Frost Seamus Heaney Homer Langston Hughes John Keats W.S. Merwin John Milton Marianne Moore Sylvia Plath Edgar Allan Poe Poets of World War I Christina Rossetti Wallace Stevens Mark Strand Shakespeare’s Poems & Sonnets Percy Shelley Allen Tate Alfred, Lord Tennyson Walt Whitman William Carlos Williams William Wordsworth William Butler Yeats Allen Tate © 2004 by Chelsea House Publishers, a subsidiary of Haights Cross Communications. Introduction © 2004 by Harold Bloom. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. First Printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Allen Tate / [edited by] Harold Bloom. p. cm. — (Bloom’s major poets) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7910-7889-2 1. Tate, Allen, 1899—-Criticism and interpretation. I. Bloom, Harold. II. Series. PS3539.A74Z56 2004 818’.5209—dc22 2004002632 Contributing Editor: Gabriel Welsch Cover design by Keith Trego Layout by EJB Publishing Services CONTENTS User’s Guide 7 About the Editor 8 Editor’s Note 9 Introduction 10 Biography of Allen Tate 12 Critical Analysis of “Ode to the Confederate Dead” 18 Critical Views on “Ode to the Confederate Dead” 25 George Hemphill on the Poem’s Formative Aspects 25 Ferman Bishop on Tate’s Revision Process 29 Radcliffe Squires Explicates the Poem 39 Robert S. Dupree on Tate’s Parody of Religious Ideals 47 William Doreski on the Context of Tate’s Voice 53 Langdon Hammer on the Presence of Other Modernists 55 Critical Analysis of “The Mediterranean” 63 Critical Views on “The Mediterranean” 66 George Hemphill onTate’s Characteristic Tension 66 Radcliffe Squires on Tate’s Intellectual “Home” 68 Robert S. Dupree on the Poem’s Suggestive Language 71 William Doreski on Tate’s Connection to Baudelaire 75 Critical Analysis of “Aeneas at Washington” 78 Critical Views on “Aeneas at Washington” 82 Radcliffe Squires on Tate’s Pairs of Poems 82 Robert S. Dupree on the Poem’s Imaginative Leap 84 Elsa Nettels on the Poem’s Agrarian Statement 88 Critical Analysis of “The Swimmers” 92 Critical Views on “The Swimmers” 96 Radcliffe Squires on Tate’s Formal Approach 96 Robert S. Dupree on the Poem’s Narrative and Symbolism 97 William Doreski on Tate’s Breaking New Ground 102 Thomas A. Underwood on Tate’s Social Thinking 106 Works by Allen Tate 113 Works about Allen Tate 116 Acknowledgments 121 Index of Themes and Ideas 122 USER’S GUIDE This volume is designed to present biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on the author and the author’s best- known or most important poems. Following Harold Bloom’s editor’s note and introduction is a concise biography of the author that discusses major life events and important literary accomplishments. A critical analysis of each poem follows, tracing significant themes, patterns, and motifs in the work. As with any study guide, it is recommended that the reader read the poem beforehand and have a copy of the poem being discussed available for quick reference. A selection of critical extracts, derived from previously published material, follows each thematic analysis. In most cases, these extracts represent the best analysis available from a number of leading critics. Because these extracts are derived from previously published material, they will include the original notations and references when available. Each extract is cited, and readers are encouraged to check the original publication as they continue their research. A bibliography of the author’s writings, a list of additional books and articles on the author and their work, and an index of themes and ideas conclude the volume. ABOUT THE EDITOR Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. He is the author of over 20 books, and the editor of more than 30 anthologies of literary criticism. Professor Bloom’s works include Shelley’s Mythmaking (1959), The Visionary Company (1961), Blake’s Apocalypse (1963), Yeats (1970), A Map of Misreading (1975), Kabbalah and Criticism (1975), Agon: Toward a Theory of Revisionism (1982), The American Religion (1992), The Western Canon (1994), and Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection (1996). The Anxiety of Influence (1973) sets forth Professor Bloom’s provocative theory of the literary relationships between the great writers and their predecessors. His most recent books include Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, a 1998 National Book Award finalist, How to Read and Why(2000), Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages (2001), Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (2002), and Hamlet: Poem Unlimited(2003). Professor Bloom earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1955 and has served on the Yale faculty since then. He is a 1985 MacArthur Foundation Award recipient and served as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University in 1987–88. In 1999 he was awarded the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Criticism. Professor Bloom is the editor of several other Chelsea House series in literary criticism, including BLOOM’S MAJOR SHORT STORY WRITERS, BLOOM’S MAJOR NOVELISTS, BLOOM’S MAJOR DRAMATISTS, BLOOM’S MODERN CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS, BLOOM’S MODERN CRITICAL VIEWS, BLOOM’S BIOCRITIQUES, BLOOM’S GUIDES, BLOOM’S MAJOR LITERARY CHARACTERS, and BLOOM’SPERIODSTUDIES. 8 EDITOR’S NOTE My Introduction contrasts “The Mediterranean,” a poem that shows Allen Tate’s affinity with Hart Crane, to “Aeneas at Washington,” where the idiom of T.S. Eliot is dominant. All six of the critical analyses of “Ode to the Confederate Dead” seem to me useful, but I am particularly helped by Langdon Hammer’s acute perceptions. Hammer shrewdly notes Tate’s recapitulation of his identification with Eliot and repudiation of Hart Crane. He captures the irony of Crane’s continued presence in the poem’s metric and cognitive music. “The Mediterranean” receives four erudite commentaries here, emphasizing Tate’s evocations of Vergil and Baudelaire, useful supplements to the surmise in my Introduction that Hart Crane’s ghost also hovers in this poem. “Aeneas at Washington,” far more Eliotic than Vergilian, is seen by three critics here as an exemplification of Tate’s “fierce Latinity.” “The Swimmers,” probably Tate’s most socially problematical poem, is illuminated by four approaches here, all of which suggest that this work’s creation could not resolve the blockage of Tate’s imaginative vision. 9