The Lytle-Tate letters: the correspondence of Andrew Lytle and Allen Tate

853 Pages·1987·2.42 MB·English

by  Andrew Nelson Lytle

The Lytle-Tate Letters : The
title: Correspondence of Andrew Lytle and Allen
Tate
Lytle, Andrew Nelson.; Tate, Allen; Young,
author:
Thomas Daniel; Sarcone, Elizabeth
publisher: University Press of Mississippi
isbn10 | asin: 0878053263
print isbn13: 9780878053261
ebook isbn13: 9780585233710
language: English
Lytle, Andrew Nelson,--1902- --
Correspondence, Southern States--
subject Intellectual life--20th century, Tate, Allen,-
-1899- --Correspondence, Authors,
American--20th century--Correspondence.
publication date: 1987
lcc: PS3523.Y88Z497 1987eb
ddc: 816/.52/08
Lytle, Andrew Nelson,--1902- --
Correspondence, Southern States--
subject: Intellectual life--20th century, Tate, Allen,-
-1899- --Correspondence, Authors,
American--20th century--Correspondence.
Page iii
The Lytle-Tate Letters
The Correspondence of Andrew Lytle and Allen Tate
Edited by
Thomas Daniel Young
and Elizabeth Sarcone
University Press Of Mississippi
Jackson & London
Page iv
Copyright © 1987 by the University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lytle, Andrew Nelson, 1902
The Lytle-Tate letters: the correspondence of Andrew Lytle and
Allen Tate/edited by Thomas Daniel Young and Elizabeth Sarcone.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0878053263 (alk. paper)
1. Lytle, Andrew Nelson, 1902 Correspondence. 2. Tate,
Allen, 1899 Correspondence. 3. Authors, American20th
centuryCorrespondence. I. Tate, Allen, 1899 . II. Young.
Thomas Daniel, 1919 . III. Sarcone, Elizabeth, 1947 .
IV. Title.
PS3523.Y88Z497 1987
816'.52'08dc19 87-16014
CIP
Page v
Contents
Introduction vii
Chronologies xiii
The Letters
I 3
19271939
II 149
19401949
III 219
19501959
IV 293
19601968
Appendixes 365
Index 383
Page vii
Introduction
These letters reveal that a closer, more personal relationship existed
between Andrew Lytle and Allen Tate than that between any of the
other Nashville writers. In fact one would have to search carefully
through literary history to find two other writers who confided so
completely in each other. Tate wrote many letters to other poets,
critics, and novelists. In fact after searching through the collections of
letters at Princeton and Vanderbiltand there are many to and from him
elsewhereone begins to wonder how Tate had time to produce nearly
fifty books,which included more than two hundred poems and nearly
as many essays. In every genre in which he worked, furthermore,
including fiction, he is one of the most original and influential artists
in modern American literature.
In a closely printed volume of more than four-hundred pages of The
Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom, about half of the letters are to
Tate, and there is sufficient evidence to support the supposition that
Tate answered every letter he received. Few of these letters, however,
were personal letters. Many of them were devoted to developing a
theory of the nature and function of poetry or to discussing ways in
which one could best employ an influential literary quarterly. The
correspondence between Tate and Donald Davidson makes a book of
more than four-hundred pages. Although there is some discussion of
personal matters, particularly to poems, essays, and books that both
men had written, the most interesting and informative of the letters are
those devoted to the activities of the Fugitives and the Agrarians. For
nearly thirty years Tate corresponded with John Peale Bishop, and it is
true that some of the letters were devoted to quasi-personal

Page viii
matters, but most of them were concerned with close and helpful
readings of each other's poems or to the state of the vocation of letters
in America. This is not to say that there was not a feeling of
admiration and respect between the two men. Bishop admitted more
than once that had it not been for Tate, he probably would have given
up the writing of poetry while he was a young man. Tate's admiration
for Bishop, as man and poet, is obvious, not only in his letters but in
the essays he wrote about Bishop, and the edition of his friend's poetry
he edited after Bishop's death.
These three men are not the only ones to whom Tate wrote. There
were also T. S. Eliot, Fitzgerald, Harriet Monroe, Marianne Moore,
and many, many others. The letters to Lytle, however, are different.
Not only did these two discuss in minute details the poems, stories,
essays, novels, or plays that the other was writing, they wrote about
I'll Take My Stand, Who Owns America? and Southern art, culture and
social institutions. They discussed frankly, and not always uncritically,
their mutual friends: Davidson, Ransom, and Robert Penn Warren.
The correspondence gets off to a slow start. There is no evidence to
indicate that Lytle and Tate were close friends at Vanderbilt. Lytle was
never a member of the Fugitives, though he did attend one or two
meetings of the group and he published an undistinguished poem,
"Edward Graves," in The Fugitive as well as one or two in Driftwood
Flames, the undergraduate literary magazine. At Vanderbilt Lytle's
primary literary interest was drama, and immediately after graduation
he enrolled in George Pierce Baker's school of drama at Yale. About
the same time Tate went to New York to try to earn his living at
freelance journalism. Lytle appeared as an actor a few times in Off-
Broadway Theaters, Tate attended as many of the performances as he
could, and wrote Lytle complimentary letters about his presentation of
his roles, although he always protested that he knew nothing about
drama and surely could not offer any helpful criticism. Then Tate,
apparently lonely and wanting some reminder of his Nashville days,
began writing Lytle to visit him and his wife, Caroline Gordon, so
there are many notes of invitation and acceptance or regrets. There are
also many apologies because promises were not kept.
Tate and Lytle began to realize that they were kindred spirits,
however, after Lytle moved back to Tennessee and was living either in
Murfreesboro or at Cornsilk, the family plantation near Guntersville,
Page ix
Alabama. Although Tate was in France on a Guggenheim Fellowship,
he and Lytle began to exchange views about the proposed symposium
defending the South and its culture. They agreed from the first in their
opposition to the emphasis that modern society has placed on
technology and consumer economics. They believed such emphasis
had tended to dehumanize man so that he could no longer create an
intellectual climate in which Christian values could exist. They did
not believe that the problems of modern man could be solved by
science or the planned society of some social scientists. Man should
not accept change in the name of progress. He should be convinced
that that which he was accepting was superior to that which he was
rejecting. All of these things and more, both agreed on completely, but
they discovered how close their agreement was only after their
detailed discussion of these matters in their letters. Along with Robert
Penn Warren, they strongly opposed calling the symposium I'll Take
My Stand because they thought a phrase from a popular song was little
more than a Madison Avenue advertising slogan, intended to attract
attention, and did little to suggest the nature and intensity of their
protests. Although it must be said that the title suggested by the
dissentersTracts Against Communismwas little more appropriate than
the one used. The agreement between Tate and Lytle on the essential
purpose of the dissent was firmly established, however; therefore
when Tate and Herbert Agar were planning Who Owns America?
(1936), Lytle was Tate's principal advisor.
Lytle and Tate were not in complete agreement, however, on the
means by which one could acquire the good life. Lytle was convinced
that being firmly settled on a piece of land and practicing subsistence
farming was the only way one could be sure of avoiding the
dehumanizing effects of uncontrolled acquisitive materialism. In his
young and middle years, therefore, he was searching for a small farm
on which he could raise most of his food and have sufficient time left