Editing Allen Tate (section)

===1920s===
Tate made his debut as a critic in the weekly book page Davidson edited for the ''[[The Tennessean|Nashville Tennessean]],'' publishing 29 reviews there during 1924. The fifth book he reviewed was ''[[An Anthology of Verse by American Negroes]],'' edited by [[Newman Ivey White]] and [[Walter Clinton Jackson]]--"the first significant attempt" by "white critics to do justice to Negro literature in America." He faulted the editors' standards of "refinement" and "taste."  "This of [[Claude McKay]]: 'Some of his poems are too erotic for good taste and conventional morality.'  Whose good taste and whose morality?"  It was easy "to understand why they overlooked altogether the work of [[Jean Toomer]].  Toomer is the finest Negro literary artist that has yet appeared in the American scene, but he is interested in the interior of Negro life, not in the pressure of American culture on the Negro."

In 1924, Tate moved to New York City where he met poet [[Hart Crane]], with whom he had been corresponding for some time. Over a four-year period, Tate worked freelance for ''[[The Nation]]'', and contributed to the ''[[Hound & Horn]]'', ''[[Poetry Magazine|Poetry]]'' magazine, and others. To make ends meet, he worked as a janitor.

During a summer visit with the poet [[Robert Penn Warren]] in [[Kentucky]], he began a relationship with writer [[Caroline Gordon]]. The two lived together in [[Greenwich Village]], but moved with Crane to a house in [[Patterson, New York]], near "Robber Rocks," the home of friends [[Slater Brown]] and Sue Brown. Tate married Gordon in New York in May 1925. Their daughter Nancy was born in September. In 1928, along with other New York City friends, Tate went to Europe. In London, he visited with [[T. S. Eliot]], whose poetry and criticism he greatly admired, and he also visited Paris.

In 1928, Tate published his first book of poetry, ''Mr. Pope and Other Poems'', which contained his most famous poem, "[[Ode to the Confederate Dead]]" (not to be confused with "[[Ode: Sung on the Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C., 1867|Ode to the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery]]" by the poet [[Henry Timrod]]). That same year, Tate also published the [[biography]] ''[[Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier]]''.  Later he became tired of the "Ode."

Just before leaving for Europe in 1928, Tate described himself to [[John Gould Fletcher]] as "an enforced atheist".<ref>Thomas A. Underwood, ''[[Allen Tate: Orphan of the South]]'', Princeton University Press, p. 154. {{ISBN|0-691-06950-6}}</ref> He later told Fletcher, "I am an atheist, but a religious one — which means that there is no organization for my religion." He regarded secular attempts to develop a system of thought for the modern world as misguided. "Only God," he insisted, "can give the affair a genuine purpose."<ref>Underwood, ''Allen Tate'', p. 157.</ref> In his essay "The Fallacy of Humanism" (1929), Tate criticized the [[Humanism|humanists]] of his time for creating a value system without investing it with any identifiable source of authority. "Religion is the only technique for the validation of values," he wrote.<ref>Underwood, ''Allen Tate'', p. 155</ref> Although he was attracted to [[Roman Catholicism]], he deferred converting. [[Louis D. Rubin, Jr.]] observes that Tate may have waited "because he realized that for him at this time it would be ''only'' a strategy, an intellectual act".<ref>Louis D. Rubin, Jr., ''The Wary Fugitives: Four Poets and the South'', Louisiana State University Press, 1978, p. 125. {{ISBN|0-8071-0454-X}}</ref>

In 1929, Tate published a second biography, ''[[Jefferson Davis]]: His Rise and Fall''.