Editing Mark Van Doren

{{short description|American poet (1894–1972)}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Mark Van Doren
| image            = Mark Van Doren (1894 – 1972).jpg
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1894|06|13}}
| birth_place      = [[Hope, Illinois]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1972|12|10|1894|06|13}}
| death_place      = [[Torrington, Connecticut]], U.S.
| occupation       = {{flatlist|
* [[Poet]]
* [[critic]]
* [[teacher]]}}
| education        = [[University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[Columbia University]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| notableworks     = ''Shakespeare'' (1939)<br />''A Liberal Education'' (1943)
| spouse           = [[Dorothy Van Doren]]
| children         = 2, including [[Charles Van Doren]]
| relatives        = [[Carl Van Doren]] (brother)<br>Adam Van Doren (grandson)
| awards           = [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]], [[1940 Pulitzer Prize|1940]] for ''Collected Poems 1922–1938'' <br />[[List of winners of the Academy of American Poets' Fellowship|Academy of American Poets' Fellowship]] (1967)
}}
'''Mark Van Doren''' (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic.  He was a scholar and a professor of English at [[Columbia University]] for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including [[Thomas Merton]], [[Robert Lax]], [[John Berryman]],  [[Whittaker Chambers]], and [[Beat Generation]] writers such as [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Jack Kerouac]]. He was [[literary editor]] of ''[[The Nation (U.S. periodical)|The Nation]]'', in [[New York City]] from 1924 to 1928 and its film critic from 1935 to 1938.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/622673/Mark-Van-Doren  Mark Van Doren] ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''</ref>

Amongst his notable works, many published in ''[[The Kenyon Review]]'',<ref name=hist>[http://www.kenyonreview.org/about-history.php "History"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081230133942/http://www.kenyonreview.org/about-history.php |date=December 30, 2008 }} the ''Kenyon Review'' Web site, accessed January 26, 2007</ref> are a collaboration with his brother [[Carl Van Doren]], ''American and British Literature since 1890'' (1939); critical studies, ''The Poetry of John Dryden'' (1920), ''Shakespeare'' (1939), ''The Noble Voice'' (1945) and ''Nathaniel Hawthorne'' (1949); collections of poems including ''Jonathan Gentry'' (1931); stories; and the verse play ''The Last Days of Lincoln'' (1959). A notable student, later a colleague, was [[Lionel Trilling]]. [[David Lehman]] writes that "Though the differences between them were many – Trilling struck some as patrician in demeanor where Van Doren seemed ever the populist – the two great professors inspired a rare filial devotion in generations of Columbia students. It was inevitably either Mark Van Doren or Lionel Trilling who was the favorite professor of students with a literary vocation, and in time Columbia would name its highest teaching accolade after Van Doren and its major award for scholarship after Trilling."<ref name=":Lehman">{{cite news| last=Lehman| first=David| work=Columbia College Today| date=September 2005| title=Mark Van Doren and Shakespeare|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/sep05/forum.html}}</ref> He won the [[1940 Pulitzer Prize|1940]] [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]] for ''Collected Poems 1922–1938''.

==Early life and education==
Van Doren was born in [[Hope, Illinois]], the fourth of five sons of the county's doctor, Charles Lucius Van Doren, of remote [[Van Doren|Dutch ancestry]], and wife Eudora Ann Butz. He was raised on his family's farm in eastern Illinois, before his father decided to move to the neighboring town of [[Urbana, Illinois|Urbana]], to be closer to good schools.<ref name=penn/>

He was the younger brother of the academic and biographer [[Carl Van Doren]], starting with whom all five brothers attended the local elementary school and high school. Mark Van Doren eventually studied at the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|University of Illinois]] in Urbana,<ref name=penn>[http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Van-Doren/VanDoren-Mark_liner-notes_Folkways+1967.pdf Mark Van Doren: Collected and New Poems] [[University of Pennsylvania]]</ref> where he earned a B.A. in 1914. In 1920, he earned a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] from what became the [[Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences]] at [[Columbia University]], while also a member of the [[Boar's Head Society]], a student society at the university devoted to poetry.<ref name=spectator19591014>{{cite web |first=Zvi |last=Gitelman |title=Review Produced Literary Notables: Barzun, Dewey, Van Doren Once Participated in King's Crown Literary Quarterly's Activity |work=Columbia Daily Spectator |url=http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19591014-01.2.5&srpos=20&e=-------en-20--1-byDA.rev-txt-txIN-%22boar%27s+head%22----- |date=October 14, 1959 |access-date=March 5, 2016}}</ref>

==Career==

[[File:Ulmann, Mark van Doren.jpg|thumb|left|Mark Van Doren in 1920]]
Mark Van Doren joined the [[Columbia University]] faculty in 1920, having been preceded by his brother Carl. He went on to become one of Columbia's  greatest teachers and a "legendary classroom presence"; he became a full professor in 1942, and taught English until 1959, at which point he became [[Professor Emeritus]] until his death in 1972.<ref name=co>{{cite web |url=http://www.c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/mark_van_doren.html |title=Mark Van Doren |date=2004 |work=Columbia 250 – Columbians Ahead of Their Time |publisher=[[Columbia University]]  |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220327064717/https://www.c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/mark_van_doren.html |archive-date=March 27, 2022 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[David Lehman]] writes that "The 1920s were a great decade for Mark. At Columbia, he had remarkable students, [[Whittaker Chambers]] and [[Lionel Trilling|Trilling]] among them. Van Doren published scholarly books on [[John Dryden]] and [[Edwin Arlington Robinson]], served as literary editor of ''[[The Nation]]'' (where he met [[Dorothy Van Doren|Dorothy]], née Graffe, also a writer) and edited an anthology of world poetry that sold so well it enabled the Van Dorens to buy their house on Bleecker Street in the West Village in New York City in February 1929, just months before the stock market tumbled and the 'roaring' decade ran out.

At a moment when Ivy League prejudice against Jews was not uncommon, Van Doren acquired a reputation for philo-Semitism with an essay he published in 1927 in the ''Menorah Journal'', the magazine that years later would be rechristened [[Commentary (magazine)|''Commentary'']]. In 'Jewish Students I Have Known,' Van Doren wrote perceptively and it turned out somewhat prophetically about some of the gifted young men he was teaching at Columbia. As Van Doren's student, the great art historian [[Meyer Schapiro]] already displayed the 'passion to know and make known.' [[Louis Zukofsky]] was 'a subtle poet' with 'an inarticulate soul.' [[Clifton Fadiman]] impressed with his tremendous fund of knowledge. About Trilling, who soon joined him on the Columbia faculty, Van Doren was particularly insightful. The young Trilling possessed 'dignity and grace,' Van Doren wrote, and whatever he elects to do 'will be lovely, for it will be the fruit of a pure intelligence slowly ripened in not too fierce a sun.'"<ref name=":Lehman"/> From 1953-1971 he appeared weekly opposite [[Maurice Samuel]] on NBC radio's summer program "Eternal Light: The Words We Live By" where the two discussed the literary and cultural impact of the Bible.<ref>{{cite web |last=Haendiges |first=Jeremy |date=April 13, 2003 |title=Jerry Haendiges' Vintage Radio Logs |url=https://www.otrsite.com/logs/loge1013.htm |website=www.otrsite.com |location= |publisher=The Vintage Radio Place |access-date=Jan 12, 2025}}</ref>
<ref name="Maurice Samuel Papers">{{Cite web|title=Maurice Samuel Papers|url=http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0089/ms0089.html|access-date=2020-09-25|website=collections.americanjewisharchives.org}}</ref>
<ref>{{YouTube|id=BEFwWnsbpCE|title=Eternal Light 620902 0903 Democracy and the Bible # 15, Old Time Radio}}</ref>

Also among his students were the poets [[John Berryman]] and [[Robert Lax]], novelist [[Anthony Robinson (novelist)|Anthony Robinson]], psychologist [[Walter B. Pitkin Jr.]], [[Japanologist]] [[Donald Keene]], writer and [[Trappist]] monk [[Thomas Merton]] and chemist [[Roald Hoffmann]].<ref name=co/><ref name=col/> Lehman writes that "His teaching was grounded in the proposition that an intelligent person of good faith needed no special qualifications to read ''[[Othello]]'', ''[[The Iliad]]'', or ''[[The Divine Comedy]]''. You just needed to be attentive and use your intelligence. And because he treated the students with respect and without condescension, he brought out the best in them." He writes of his of his notable students, who "ranged from ecstatic Zen Beat masters ([[Allen Ginsberg]], [[Jack Kerouac]]) to verse sophisticates ([[Louis Simpson]], [[John Hollander]], [[Richard Howard]]). It was a decisive encounter for Kerouac; he got an A in Van Doren's Shakespeare course, and decided in consequence to quit the Columbia football team and take up literature instead."<ref name=":Lehman"/>

{{Quote box| width=20%|align=right|quote="I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds."|source=– Mark Van Doren (''[[Newsweek]]'', 1959)<ref name=co/>|}}
He twice served on the staff of ''[[The Nation (U.S. periodical)|The Nation]]'' from 1924–1928 and again from 1935–1938.<ref>{{cite web |title=Author Bios: Mark Van Doren (and articles) |url=http://www.thenation.com/authors/mark-van-doren#axzz2XOyiObsI |work=The Nation |date=April 2, 2010 |access-date=June 27, 2013}}</ref> He was a member of the [[Society for the Prevention of World War III]].

In 1940, he was awarded the [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]] for ''Collected Poems 1922–1938''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Official listings: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry |url=http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Poetry |publisher=Pulitzer Prize |access-date=June 27, 2013}}</ref> This came only a year after his elder brother Carl had won the [[Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography]] for ''Benjamin Franklin''.<ref>[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Biography+or+Autobiography Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography] Official Listings.</ref> Van Doren helped Ginsberg avoid jail time in June 1949 by testifying on his behalf when Ginsberg was arrested as an accessory to crimes carried out by [[Herbert Huncke]] and others, and was an important influence on Merton, both in Merton's conversion to Catholicism and Merton's poetry.  He was a strong advocate of [[liberal education]], and wrote the book, ''Liberal Education'' (1943), which helped promote the influential "[[great books]]" movement.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Beginnings of the Great Books Movement at Columbia |url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Winter2001/greatBooks.html |date=Winter 2001 |work=Columbia Magazine |access-date=June 27, 2013}}</ref> Starting in 1941, he also did ''Invitation to Learning'', a [[CBS Radio]] show, where as one of the experts he discussed great literature.

He was made a [[Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress|Fellow in American Letters of the Library of Congress]] and also remained president of the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]].<ref name=nb>[http://www.nybooks.com/nyrb/authors/11375 Mark Van Doren Profile] [[The New York Review of Books]]</ref><ref>[http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/oasis/profiles/van_doren.php "Mark Van Doren", ''Faculty Profiles''] Columbia University.</ref>

== Global policy ==
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a [[world constitution]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letters from Thane Read asking Helen Keller to sign the World Constitution for world peace. 1961 |url=https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-07-B149-F04-022.1.8 |access-date=2023-07-01 |website=Helen Keller Archive |publisher=American Foundation for the Blind}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Letter from World Constitution Coordinating Committee to Helen, enclosing current materials |url=https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-07-B154-F05-028.1.6 |access-date=2023-07-03 |website=Helen Keller Archive |publisher=American Foundation for the Blind}}</ref> As a result, for the first time in human history, a [[World Constituent Assembly]] convened to draft and adopt the [[Constitution for the Federation of Earth]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Preparing earth constitution {{!}} Global Strategies & Solutions {{!}} The Encyclopedia of World Problems |url=http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/strategy/193465 |access-date=2023-07-15 |website=The Encyclopedia of World Problems {{!}} Union of International Associations (UIA)}}</ref>

==Personal life==
In 1922 Mark Van Doren married [[Dorothy Van Doren|Dorothy Graffe]], novelist and writer of the memoir ''The Professor and I'' (1959), whom he had earlier met at ''The Nation''. His successful book, ''Anthology of World Poetry'', enabled the couple to buy a house on [[Bleecker Street]] in [[New York City]] in February 1929, before markets collapsed.<ref name=col/>

Their son, [[Charles Van Doren]] (1926-2019), briefly achieved renown as the winner of the rigged game show ''[[Twenty-One (game show)|Twenty-One]]''. In the film ''[[Quiz Show (film)|Quiz Show]]'' (1994), Mark Van Doren was played by [[Paul Scofield]],<ref>{{cite news |title=Quiz Show; Good and Evil in a More Innocent Age |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/14/movies/film-review-quiz-show-good-and-evil-in-a-more-innocent-age.html?pagewanted=all |work=[[New York Times]] |date=September 14, 1994 | first=Janet | last=Maslin}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Fall Preview: Movies: When America Lost Its Innocence – Maybe – Robert Redford Takes A Prismatic Look At A Nation Through The Tv Quiz-Show Scandals Of The '50S |url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/108975 |date=September 19, 1994 |author=David Ansen|publisher=[[Newsweek]] }}</ref> who earned an [[Academy Award]] nomination in the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Supporting Actor]] category for his performance.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090224112150/http://www.nnp.org/nni/Publications/Dutch-American/vandorenm.html Mark Van Doren]}}</ref> Their second son was John Van Doren who also lived in [[Cornwall, Connecticut]], at the farmstead where their father did most of his writing between academic years, and where he moved after retirement.<ref name=col>[http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/sep05/forum.php Mark Van Doren and Shakespeare] columbia.edu.</ref>

Mark Van Doren died on December 10, 1972, in [[Torrington, Connecticut]], aged 78, two days after undergoing surgery for circulatory problems at the Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. He was interred at Cornwall Hollow Cemetery in [[Connecticut]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Mark Van Doren, 78, Poet, Teacher, Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/12/archives/new-jersey-pages-mark-van-doren-78-poet-teacher-dies-mark-van-doren.html |work=[[New York Times]]|date=December 12, 1972 }}</ref>

==Legacy==
His correspondence with [[Allen Tate]] is at [[Vanderbilt University]].<ref>[http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/pdf/tate_doren.pdf Mark Van Doren] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620055217/http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/pdf/tate_doren.pdf |date=June 20, 2010 }} [[Vanderbilt University]] Library.</ref> Since 1962, students of [[Columbia College of Columbia University|Columbia College]] have honored a great teacher at the school each year with the "Mark Van Doren Award". [[John Updike]] wrote that "Van Doren's ''Shakespeare'' got me through [[Harry Levin]]'s course back in 1951. Whenever I reread a Shax play, I reread what Van Doren said about it."<ref>{{cite book |last=Van Doren |first=Mark |title=Shakespeare |publisher=New York Review Books Classics |page=xi}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==
'''Poetry:'''
* ''Spring Thunder'' (1924)
* ''An Anthology of World Poetry'' (1928)
* ''Jonathan Gentry'' (1931), (Editor)
* ''The Oxford Book of American Prose'', ([[Oxford University Press|OUP]]), (1932)
* ''Winter Diary'' (1935)
* ''Collected Poems 1922–1938'' (1939), Winner of the 1940 [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]]
* ''The Mayfield Deer'' (1941)
* The Country Year (1946) William Sloane Associates, New York
* ''Selected poems'' ([[Henry Holt and Company|Holt]]), (1954)
* ''The Last Days of Lincoln, a play in six scenes'' (1959), a Verse Play
* ''Our Lady Peace''
* ''The Story-Teller'' (N/A)
* ''Collected and New Poems 1924–1963'' (1963)
* {{cite book|title=Mark Van Doren: 100 poems|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1NJAAAAMAAJ|year=1967|publisher=Hill and Wang}}
* That Shining Place: New Poems (1969) Hall and Wang
'''Novels:'''
* ''The Transients'' (1935)
* ''Windless Cabins'' (1940)
* ''Tilda'' (1943)

'''Short story collection'''
* ''Nobody Say a Word'' (1954)

'''Nonfiction:'''
* ''Henry David Thoreau: A Critical Study'' (1916)
* ''The Poetry of John Dryden'' (1920)
* ''Introduction to [[Bartram's Travels]]'' (1928)
* ''An Autobiography of America'', (A. & C. Boni), )1929)
* ''American poets, 1630–1930'' (Little, Brown), (1932)
* ''American and British Literature Since 1890'' (1939), with Carl Van Doren
* ''Shakespeare'' (1939)
* ''The Liberal Education'' (1943)
* ''The night of the summer solstice: & other stories of the Russian war'', ([[Henry Holt and Company]]), (1943)
* ''The Noble Voice'' (1946)
* ''Nathaniel Hawthorne'' (1949)
* ''Introduction to Poetry'' (1951)
* ''The Autobiography Of Mark Van Doren'' (1958)
* ''The Happy Critic'' (1961)
*  {{cite book|title=Mark Van Doren on Great Poems of Western Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BlIRAQAAIAAJ|year=1962|publisher=Collier Books}}
* {{cite book|title=Insights into literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CihAAAAAIAAJ|year=1968|publisher=Houghton Mifflin}}
* {{cite book| title=The Selected Letters of Mark Van Doren| editor=George Hendrick| publisher=Louisiana State University Press| year=1987| place=Baton Rouge| isbn=0-8071-1317-4| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/selectedletterso00vand}}
* {{cite book|title=John Dryden: A Study of His Poetry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1JbKAy4tknIC|year=2007|publisher=Read Books|isbn=978-1-4067-2488-2}}
* {{cite book|title=Edwin Arlington Robinson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2xpvDwEACAAJ|year=2010|edition=Reprint|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|isbn=978-1-169-10983-4}}

'''Discography:'''
* [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Van-Doren.html ''Mark Van Doren Reads from His Collected and New Poems''] ([[Folkways Records]], 1967)

==Citations==* "La littérature du monde a exercé son pouvoir en étant traduite."<ref>[http://translation.utdallas.edu/translationstudies/quotes.htm L'art, le métier, les modes et l'efficacité de la traduction littéraire discutés à travers les âges] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100426230328/http://translation.utdallas.edu/translationstudies/quotes.htm |date=April 26, 2010 }} [[L'Université du Texas à Dallas]] - École des arts et des sciences humaines.</ref>*
"L'art d'enseigner est l'art d'assister à la découverte."<ref>https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/counting-van-dorens</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist|2}}

== Further reading ==
* ''The Essays of Mark Van Doren: (1924–1972) Selected'', with an Introduction by William Claire. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
* ''Mark Van Doren'', by J. T. Ledbetter. Peter Lang, 1996. {{ISBN|0-8204-3334-9}}.
* [http://www.sonnets.org/vandoren.htm Sonnets by Mark Van Doren]

== External links ==
{{Wikisource author}}

{{Commons category}}
* [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/mark-van-doren Mark Van Doren, Biography and Poems] at [[Poetry Foundation]]
* [http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/sep05/forum.php Mark Van Doren and Shakespeare]; ''Columbia College Today'', September 2005 (retrieved May 24, 2009)
* [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Mark+Van+Doren+&+American+classicism.-a0146219096 Mark Van Doren & American classicism.] Free Library
* {{Find a Grave|6477}}
* [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_12767756 Finding aid to William F. Claire collection on Mark van Doren at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]
* [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078574 Finding aid to Robert N. Caldwell Correspondence with Mark van Doren at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]

{{PulitzerPrize PoetryAuthors 1922–1950}}
{{World Constitutional Convention call signatories}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Doren, Mark}}
[[Category:1894 births]]
[[Category:1972 deaths]]
[[Category:American male poets]]
[[Category:American autobiographers]]
[[Category:American film critics]]
[[Category:American literary editors]]
[[Category:American people of Dutch descent]]
[[Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
[[Category:American academics of English literature]]
[[Category:People from Vermilion County, Illinois]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners]]
[[Category:The Nation (U.S. magazine) people]]
[[Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni]]
[[Category:Van Doren family|Mark Van Doren]]
[[Category:20th-century American poets]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Illinois]]
[[Category:Presidents of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:World Constitutional Convention call signatories]]