| Editor | Seward Collins |
|---|---|
| Categories | Literature, politics |
| Frequency | Monthly (except July and August) |
| First issue | April 1933 |
| Final issue | October 1937 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| OCLC | 1480672 |
The American Review was a magazine of politics and literature established by the fascist publisher Seward Collins in 1933. There were 71 issues published, containing articles, editorials, notes, and reviews, before the journal ceased operations in October 1937.[1][2]
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How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1
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LITERATURE - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The Basics of Literary Criticism
Transcription
Hi I’m John Green and this is Crash Course. Can we get these books to roll in in the future? It doesn’t feel like Crash Course unless there’s a roll in. Today, before we begin our mini-series on reading and writing in English, we’re going to discuss how to read and why. So, if you watched our series on world history, you’ll no doubt remember that writing (and the ability to read it) are so-called markers of civilization. Now, that’s a really problematic idea. I mean, for one thing, great stories can have great lives in the oral tradition. Like, one of my favorite books, Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston, was a collection of folklore that lived in the oral tradition until Zora Neale Hurston wrote it down. And the same can be said for another of my favorite books, The Odyssey. But we privilege reading and writing because they allow us to communicate directly and transparently with people who live very far away from us, and they also allow us to kind of hear the voices of the dead. I mean, I don’t want to get all liberal arts-y on you, but I want to make this clear; for me, stories are about communication. We didn’t invent grammar so that your life would be miserable in grade school as you attempted to learn what the Marquez a preposition is. By the way, on this program, I will be inserting names of my favorite writers when I would otherwise insert curse words. We invented grammar because without prepositions, we couldn’t describe what it’s like to fly through a cloud, or jump over a puddle, or Faulkner beneath the stars. Like, right now, if I’m doing my job, and you’re doing your job, you aren’t thinking about the fact that I’m contorting my mouth and tongue and vocal chords to create sounds that then exist as ideas in your brain; it’s just happening. But if my language gets confusing--if I parles en francais or incorrect word order use or eekspay inyay igpay atinlay, then I erect a barrier between you and me. You and I? You and me. Writing--or at least good writing--is an outgrowth of that urge to use language to communicate complex ideas and experiences between people. And that’s true whether you’re reading Shakespeare or bad vampire fiction, reading is always an act of empathy. It’s always an imagining of what it’s like to be someone else. So when Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter, or Salinger uses a red hunting cap, they aren’t doing this so that your English teachers will have something to torture you with. They’re doing it, at least if they’re doing it on purpose, so the story can have a bigger and better life in your mind. But, for the record, the question of whether they’re doing it on purpose is not a very interesting question. Oh, we’re still doing open letters? An Open Letter to Authorial Intent. But first, let’s see what’s in the secret compartment today. Oh, it’s a boat beating against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Dear authorial intent, As an author, let me speak to you directly. You don’t matter. Look, I’m not willing to go as far as the postmodernists and say that the author is dead because that would make me very nervous. However, the author is not that important. Whether an author intended a symbolic resonance to exist in her book is irrelevant. All that matters is whether it’s there because the book does not exist for the benefit of the author. The book exists for the benefit of you. If we, as readers, could have a bigger and richer experience with the world as a result of reading a symbol and that symbol wasn’t intended by the author, we still win. Yes, inevitably, reading is a conversation between an author and a reader. But give yourself some power in that conversation, reader. Go out there and make a world. Best wishes, John Green Here’s the thing: It is extremely hard to get other people to feel what we are feeling. Like, you may have experienced this in your own life. Say my college girlfriend broke up with me...and she did. I want to explain what I’m feeling to my best friend in the entire world. So I say, I am completely OBLITERATED. My HEART IS BROKEN. In fact, my heart is SHATTERED INTO A MILLION PIECES. Right, so, a few things are going on here: First, in excellent news, my heart has not been shattered into a million pieces. It is pumping blood in precisely the same way that it did before the breakup. Secondly, in further good news, I am not totally obliterated. Total obliteration of me would look like this. I’m using the techniques of hyperbole, in the case of obliteration, and metaphor, in the case of my broken heart, to try to describe the things that are happening inside of me. But because I’m not using particularly compelling or original figurative language, my friend may struggle to empathize with me, and this is my BEST FRIEND in the entire world. Now imagine that you’re trying to communicate far more complicated and nuanced experiences and emotions. And instead of just trying to communicate them to your best friend, you’re trying to talk to strangers, some of whom may live very far away and, in fact, live centuries after your death. Not only that, but instead of this happening during a pleasant conversation, they are reading your dry, dead text on a page. So they can’t hear your intonation or see the tears dripping from your cheeks even though it turns out that this breakup is going to be one of the best things that ever happened to you. So THAT is the challenge that Shakespeare faces, and it’s also the challenge that you face whenever you write for an audience, whether it’s a novel or a pedantic YouTube comment about the accuracy of our Gallifreyan. Hush! This is fantastic Gallifreyan. So I’m going to ask you to read critically, to look closely at a text and pay attention to the subtle ways the author is trying to communicate the full complexity of human experience, but I’m not asking you to go symbol-hunting because reading is supposed to be some treasure map in which you discover symbols, write them down, and then get an A in class. I’m asking you to read critically because by understanding language, you will 1. have a fuller understanding of lives other than your own, which 2. will help you to be more empathetic, and thereby 3. help you to avoid getting dumped by that young woman in the first place, although more importantly 4. reading critically and attentively can give you the linguistic tools to share your own story with more precision. And that will help people to understand your joy and your heartbreak, yes, but will also be helpful in many other ways, like when you are trying to convince the company to move forward with your fourth quarter strategy or whatever it is that people with real jobs do. Reading thoughtfully gives us better tools to explain corporate profits and broken hearts. And it also connects us to each other. The real reason the green light in The Great Gatsby is such a wonderful symbol is because we all know what it’s like to be outside in the evening, staring off into the distance at a future that may never be ours. We’ve all felt that stomach-churning mix of yearning and ambition that Gatsby feels as he stares out at that green light across the harbor. And by knowing what it’s like to be Gatsby, we learn more about those around us, those who came before us, and we learn more about ourselves. So, over the next few weeks, we’ll be reading not just Gatsby but also Romeo and Juliet, some poetry by Emily Dickinson, and The Catcher in the Rye. There are links to get all of these books in the video info below. We’ll begin with Romeo and Juliet next week. I’ll see you then. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The associate producer is Danica Johnson. The show is written by me. And our graphics team is Thought Bubble. If you have questions about today’s video, you can leave them in comments where they will be answered by our team of experts. And if you haven’t already, read Romeo and Juliet. It’s a very good play, although at times derivative of West Side Story. Thanks for watching Crash Course. And as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome.
Formation
Before he founded The American Review, Collins was editor of The Bookman, a New York-based literary magazine that had changed hands multiple times since its launch in 1895. Under his editorship, The Bookman increasingly reflected Collins's conservative and pro-Fascist political views.[3][4][5] Upon establishing the Review in 1933, he ceased publication of The Bookman, which he regarded as the former's predecessor.[6]
With the Review, Collins made his political aims more explicit, intending to counter the problems he saw in American politics and economics.[7] To do so he brought together the writings and opinions of four loosely compatible traditionalist groups: the British Distributists, the Neo-scholastics, the New Humanists, and the Agrarians, with whom Collins would have the closest relationship.[5][7][8][9]
The American Review is founded to give greater currency to the ideas of a number of groups and individuals who are radically critical of conditions prevalent in the modern world, but launch their criticism from a "traditionalist" basis: from the basis of a firm grasp on the immense body of experience accumulated by men in the past, and the insight which this knowledge affords. The magazine is a response to the widespread and growing feeling that the forces and principles which have produced the modern chaos are incapable of yielding any solution; that the only hope is a return to fundamentals and tested principles which have been largely pushed aside.
— Seward Collins, The American Review (April 1933)
To manage the composition and production of the journal Collins employed a small staff. For most of the run of the journal its editors were Geoffrey Stone, Marvin McCord Lowes, Dorothea Brande, and Collins, with the influence and assistance of political actors and literary figures like Allen Tate.[1]
Political advocacy
Collins commissioned the majority of The American Review's political content rather than relying on unsolicited submissions. As a result, the journal reflected his traditionalist polemics, for which he said he was "willing to incur the charge of being fanatical and extreme – to publish and write more extreme stuff than I actually whole-heartedly accept – in order to help define and clarify issues."[1] His commissioning enabled the Review to maintain a consistency of voice that had not been possible at more liberal publications,[9] and his attempt to synthesize multiple otherwise disparate conservative movements into an antimodernist coherent whole has attracted much scholarly interest.[4][5][7][10]
The journal quickly became known for its publication of reactionary and even pro-fascist essays and editorials. Its debut issue included an article by Harold Goad in praise of the fascist political structure then in place in Italy and an editorial note from Collins advertising future coverage of "Fascist economics ... which have received scant treatment by our universally liberal and radical press."[7] Still, the four political entities and Collins maintained a productive, if not always agreeable, relationship via the Review for most of the publication's relatively short life.
Controversy and decline
Collins himself was provocative in public as well as in print, expressing a number of unpopular opinions on politics and society. The extreme nature of some of his positions, or at least his presentation of them, drove collaborators away. An interview with FIGHT against War and Fascism's Grace Lumpkin was particularly damaging. Collins responded to one of the interviewer's questions by affirming: "Yes, I am a fascist. I admire Hitler and Mussolini very much" and went on to say he did not consider Hitler's treatment of Jews "persecution" because "The Jews make trouble" and "It is necessary to segregate them."[7][11][12] Although he took exception to Lumpkin's use of his comments to paint the Agrarians as fascist in nature, he had already been accused of antisemitism and of supporting a version of fascism in America, and so stood by his statements.[1][7][9]
The Agrarians immediately began to distance themselves from the Review and eventually broke ties with Collins. A number of other contributors, embarrassed by the incident, claimed ignorance or outrage that their work had been used in the service of a broader political mission which had at its core certain principles they did not agree with.[4][10] The Agrarian and journalist Herbert Agar became one of Collins's most vehement detractors. In an interview with Marxist Quarterly he said it was "illogical" for anyone to be associated with The American Review and at the same time claim to oppose fascism, and furthermore that he "would not, now that its policies have become unmistakably clear, write a piece for The American Review if it were the last publication left in America – as it might become if America goes fascist!"[13]
By the end of 1936 most of the important contributors to the journal had distanced themselves from it. It became more difficult for Collins to continue and in 1937, after he opened what he called "New York's only Right-wing bookshop", The American Review ceased publication.[11]
Notable contributors
The American Review featured the work of a range of socially conscious essayists, critics, poets, novelists, scholars, historians, and journalists. Although Collins viewed all of their work as complementary to his own ideology, most on this list are not otherwise known to have shared the same views on fascism or race, and many explicitly condemned the same.[4][5][10]
- Herbert Agar – Agrarian who published "The Task for Conservatism" in the March 1934 issue[13]
- William Edward David Allen – pro-fascist essayist and scholar
- Irving Babbitt – New Humanist writer[5]
- Howard Baker – poet, dramatist, and critic
- Hilaire Belloc – English writer, historian and distributist who appeared in several issues[7]
- Nikolai Berdyaev – Russian religious and political philosopher[5]
- John Peale Bishop – poet and novelist
- Dorothea Brande – journalist and literary critic who worked with Collins, whom she would later marry, at The Bookman. She provided editorial assistance at the Review, especially in literary matters, drawing on her experience working at several magazines[4]
- Cleanth Brooks – literary critic associated with the Southern Agrarians and the Fugitives, known for contributions to New Criticism[5]
- G. K. Chesterton – English writer who wrote several essays on distributism for the Review[4]
- Ralph Adams Cram – Monarchist writer[4][5]
- Donald Davidson – poet, essayist, critic, and Southern Agrarian[7][9]
- Christopher Dawson – independent scholar known for his work on cultural history and Christianity[5]
- Mark Van Doren – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
- T. S. Eliot – poet, essayist, playwright, and critic[4][13]
- Francis Fergusson – teacher and critic
- John Gould Fletcher – Imagist poet associated with the Southern Agrarians[5]
- Harold Elsdale Goad – British writer, journalist, and poet known for his work promoting fascism[7]
- Ross J. S. Hoffman – historian and conservative intellectual[5]
- John Brinckerhoff Jackson – architecture critic, critic of Nazism
- Randall Jarrell – poet and critic associated with the Southern Agrarians
- Douglas Francis Jerrold – editor of The English Review, known as a vocal supporter of Italian fascism
- Janet Lewis – novelist and poet
- Wyndham Lewis – painter and author, co-founder of Vorticism; wrote sympathetically about Adolf Hitler, recanting his support a few years later[14]
- Andrew Nelson Lytle – novelist, academic, and Southern Agrarian
- Louis MacNeice – Irish poet and playwright
- Henri Massis – French essayist, literary critic, and historian
- Vincent McNabb – Irish priest known for work in apologetics
- Paul Elmer More – journalist, literary critic, and Christian apologist associated with New Humanism[7]
- José Ortega y Gasset – Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist[5]
- Frank L. Owsley – historian, member of the Southern Agrarians
- Hilary Douglas Clark Pepler – painter, writer, and poet active in distributism
- John Crowe Ransom – writer, educator, and Agrarian known as a leading figure in New Criticism[7]
- Wilbur Schramm – mass communications scholar
- Allen Tate – Southern Agrarian writer who, in a leadership role among the agrarians, also provided some editorial assistance at the Review[7][13]
- John Donald Wade – writer and member of the Southern Agrarians who, during the 1930s, was known for essays on Southern culture
- Austin Warren – literary critic and academic[5]
- Robert Penn Warren – poet, novelist, and critic associated with the Southern Agrarians and New Criticism[5]
- William Purcell Witcutt – British minister, folklorist, and author, active in distributism
References
- ^ a b c d Stone Jr., Albert E. (1960). "Seward Collins and the American Review: Experiment in Pro-Fascism, 1933–37". American Quarterly. 12 (1): 3–19. doi:10.2307/2710186. JSTOR 2710186.
- ^ "Collins Papers". Yale Collection of American Literature. Retrieved February 21, 2016.
- ^ Hart, James D.; Leininger, Phillip W., eds. (1995). Bookman, The. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195065480.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - ^ a b c d e f g h Tucker, Michael Jay (2006). And Then They Loved Him: Seward Collins & the Chimera of an American Fascism. Peter Lang. ISBN 9780820479101.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lora, Ronald; Longton, William Henry (1999). The Conservative Press in Twentieth-century America. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313213908.
- ^ Collins, Seward (2003) [April 1933], Schneider, Gregory L. (ed.), "Monarch as Alternative (originally appeared in The American Review, April 1933)", Conservatism in America Since 1930: A Reader, NYU Press, ISBN 9780814797990
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Brinkmeyer, Robert H. (2009). The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers and European Fascism, 1930–1950. LSU Press. ISBN 9780807134801.
- ^ Collins, Seward (April 1933). "Editorial Notes". The American Review (1).
- ^ a b c d Winchell, Mark Royden (2000). Where No Flag Flies: Donald Davidson and the Southern Resistance. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 9780826212740.
Where No Flag Flies: Donald Davidson and the Southern Resistance.
- ^ a b c O'Kane, Karen (1998). "Before the new criticism: Modernism and the Nashville Group". The Mississippi Quarterly. 51 (4): 683–697.[dead link]
- ^ a b Schneider, Gregory L. (2009). The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742542846.
- ^ Lumpkin, Grace (February 1936). "I Want a King". Fight Against War and Fascism (3).
- ^ a b c d Underwood, Thomas A. (2003). Allen Tate: Orphan of the South. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 242. ISBN 0691115680.
- ^ Lafferty, David (2013). "Castor Oil for Conservatives: Wyndham Lewis's Count Your Dead: They Are Alive! and "Bolsho-Tory" Politics". Journal of Modern Literature. 36 (2): 25–43. doi:10.2979/jmodelite.36.2.25. S2CID 153573743.
This page was last edited on 10 December 2023, at 19:04