John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)

Author of Selected Poems

43+ Works 367 Members 2 Reviews 4 Favorited

About the Author

A Rhodes scholar who went to Oxford University from Vanderbilt University, John Crowe Ransom later taught at Vanderbilt University from 1914 to 1937. While there, he became mentor to a number of individuals, including Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, who later became involved in the New show more Criticism with Ransom. Professor of poetry at Kenyon College, Ohio, from 1937 to 1958, Ransom founded The Kenyon Review in 1939. He was also one of the seven residents of Nashville, Tennessee, who founded and edited The Fugitive (1922--25) and, according to Louis Untermeyer, "He more than any of the others was responsible for the new awakening of poetry in the South." He won the Academy of American Poets' $5,000 fellowship prize (1962) for his "distinguished poetic achievement." He also won the Bollingen Prize in poetry and the Loines Award for poetry. By writing a handful of lyrics remarkable for their irony and structural tensions, as well as critical essays that praised just these virtues in the name of New Criticism, Ransom had an influence far beyond many of his peers. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the names: J. C. Ransom, John Crowe Ransom, john crowe ransome, John Crowe Edited by Ransom

Image credit: Bowen School Yearbook: 1903 Senior Class

Works by John Crowe Ransom

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Selected Poems (1969) 127 copies

Poems and Essays (1955) 68 copies, 1 review

The Kenyon Review (2010) 20 copies, 1 review

The World's Body (1968) 19 copies

The new criticism (1941) 18 copies

Beating the bushes; selected essays, 1941-1970 (1972) 14 copies

God without thunder : an unorthodox defence of orthodoxy (1965) 12 copies

Land!: The Case for an Agrarian Economy (2017) 11 copies

Selected Essays of John Crowe Ransom (Southern Literary Studies) (1984) 9 copies

The Kenyon Critics: Studies in Modern Literature from the Kenyon Review (1951) 7 copies

The Complete Poems (2019) 6 copies

Chills and Fever: Poems 6 copies

Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom (Southern Literary Studies) (1985) 5 copies

The Collected Poems of John Crowe Ransom (2015) 4 copies

American poetry at mid-century 3 copies

Grace after meat 3 copies

Poems about God (2011) 3 copies

The Equilibrists (Interpreting Literature - 5th Edition) 2 copies

Topics for Freshman Writing (1935) 2 copies

World's body 2 copies

Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter (included in The Norton Introduction to Literature - 5th Edition) 2 copies

Captain Carpenter [poem] 2 copies

A College Primer of Writing (1943) 2 copies

Philomela [poem] 1 copy

A Vintage book 1 copy

Kenyon Review, Sept-Oct 2019, vol. 41, no. 5 1 copy

Kenyon Review, Mar-Apr 2019, vol. 41, no. 2 1 copy

Kenyon Review, Nov-Dec 2019, vol. 41, no. 6 1 copy

"Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter" 1 copy

The Kenyon Review, Autumn, 1957 (1957) 1 copy

COLLECTED POEMS 1 copy

The Sewanee Review Volume 82, Number 4, Fall (1948) 1 copy

Armageddon 1 copy

Lady Lost [poem] 1 copy

Tres escritores norteamericanos, VII: John Crowe Ranson, Erza Pound y William Carlos Williams. (1965) 1 copy

Painted Head [poem] 1 copy

The Kenyon Review. Vol. XII, No. 3, Summer 1950. (1950) 1 copy

Piazza Piece [poem] 1 copy

Janet Waking [poem] 1 copy

Judith of Bethulia [poem] 1 copy

Spectral Lovers [poem] 1 copy

Blue Girls [poem] 1 copy

Here Lies a Lady [poem] 1 copy

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Associated Works

The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Robert Frost (2004) — Contributor — 1,244 copies, 3 reviews

Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 1,018 copies, 7 reviews

World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contributor — 496 copies, 2 reviews

A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (1954) — Contributor, some editions — 484 copies, 3 reviews

American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Volume One: Henry Adams to Dorothy Parker (2000) — Contributor — 481 copies, 1 review

Critical Theory Since Plato (1971) — Contributor, some editions — 436 copies, 1 review

I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (Library of Southern Civilization) (1930) — Contributor — 352 copies

Modern American and Modern British Poetry (1919) — Contributor — 333 copies, 4 reviews

Criticism: Major Statements (1964) — Contributor — 234 copies

Poems Bewitched and Haunted (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series) (2005) — Contributor — 231 copies

American Religious Poems: An Anthology (2006) — Contributor — 183 copies, 2 reviews

Poetry Speaks Expanded: Hear Poets Read Their Own Work from Tennyson to Plath (2007) — Contributor — 157 copies, 2 reviews

American Wits: An Anthology of Light Verse (2003) — Contributor — 146 copies, 3 reviews

A Comprehensive Anthology of American Poetry (1929) — Contributor — 138 copies, 2 reviews

The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2: 1865 to Present (1979) — Contributor, some editions — 135 copies

The Fugitive Poets: Modern Southern Poetry (Southern Classics Series) (1991) — Contributor — 123 copies

The Norton Book of Travel (1987) — Contributor — 118 copies, 1 review

Great Modern Reading (1943) — Contributor — 115 copies, 3 reviews

The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1997) — Contributor — 110 copies

Twentieth Century American Poetry (1944) — Contributor — 109 copies, 2 reviews

Wolf's Complete Book of Terror (1979) — Contributor — 89 copies, 2 reviews

American Sonnets: An Anthology (2007) — Contributor — 81 copies

The Everyman Anthology of Poetry for Children (1994) — Contributor — 79 copies

An Introduction to Poetry (1968) — Contributor — 72 copies, 1 review

Fifty Years: Being a Retrospective Collection of Novels, Novellas, Tales, Drama, Poetry, and Reportage and Essays: All Drawn from Volumes Issued during the Last Half-Century by… (1965) — Contributor — 56 copies

Selected Poems of Thomas Hardy (1961) — Editor — 49 copies, 1 review

Who Owns America: A New Declaration of Independence (1977) — Contributor — 47 copies

Years of Protest: A Collection of American Writings of the 1930's (1967) — Contributor — 44 copies, 1 review

In Search of the Simple Life: American Voices, Past and Present (1986) — Contributor — 35 copies

An American Omnibus (1933) — Contributor — 34 copies

60 Years of American Poetry (1996) — Contributor — 33 copies, 1 review

Praising It New: The Best of the New Criticism (2008) — Contributor — 26 copies, 1 review

The Intent of the Critic (1966) — Contributor — 16 copies

Oxford and Oxfordshire in Verse (1982) — Contributor — 15 copies

Lectures in Criticism (1961) — Contributor — 13 copies

Perspectives on poetry (1968) — Contributor — 7 copies

Case-Record from a Sonnetorium (2021) — Contributor — 6 copies

The Fugitives, a Critical Account of the Southern Literary Renaissance (1958) 5 copies

New World Writing 19 (1961) — Contributor — 2 copies

A VOYAGE TO THE BRITISH ISLES (1940) — Preface — 1 copy

Conversations on the craft of poetry — Contributor — 1 copy

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Common Knowledge

Legal name: Ransom, John Crowe
Birthdate: 1888-04-30
Date of death: 1974-07-04
Gender: male
Education: Vanderbilt University
University of Oxford (Christ Church|Rhodes Scholar)
Occupations: poet
essayist
editor
professor
literary critic
Organizations: American Academy of Arts and Letters ( [1965])
The Fugitives
The Agrarians
Kenyon College
Bread Loaf School of English
The Kenyon Review (founder, editor)
Awards and honors: Bollingen Prize (1951)
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (1962)
Rhodes Scholar
Emerson-Thoreau Medal (1968)
Relationships: Tate, Allen (student)
Warren, Robert Penn (student)
Jarrell, Randall (student|friend)
Dew, Robb Forman (granddaughter)
Lytle, Andrew (friend)
Taylor, Peter Hillsman (student) (show all 9)
Brooks, Cleanth (friend)
Lowell, Robert (student)
Forman, Helen Ransom (daughter)
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Pulaski, Tennessee, USA
Places of residence: Taylorsville, Mississippi, USA
Lewisburg, Tennessee, USA
Place of death: Gambier, Ohio, USA
Burial location: Kenyon College Cemetery, Gambier, Ohio, USA
Associated Place (for map): USA

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Reviews

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3 reviews

whitewavedarling 2,017 reviews

Kenyon Review by John Crowe Ransom

Certainly literary, and high quality writing, but not a literary journal I can read cover to cover (which is what I normally do with journals) without wandering. I can't help feeling that the work always has very high ambitions (and perhaps achievements and themes also in many cases)--but is usually lacking in passion. Very rarely do I start reading anything in this one that I very simply can't put down. I feel like it's worthwhile....but it's not a journal I turn to for escape or simple show more pleasure. I will say that the essays here are often fascinating and out of the ordinarly. Those, I recommend without reserve. show less

Jul 28, 2008

jwhenderson 2,951 reviews

Poems and essays (A Vintage book) by John Crowe Ransom

At Vanderbilt, Ransom was a founding member of the Fugitives, a Southern literary group of 16 writers that functioned primarily as a kind of poetry workshop and included Donald Davidson, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. Under their influence, Ransom, whose first interest had been philosophy (specifically John Dewey and American pragmatism) began writing poetry. Ransom was a leading figure of the school of literary criticism known as the New Criticism, which gained its name from his 1941 show more volume of essays The New Criticism. The New Critical theory, which dominated American literary thought throughout the middle 20th century, emphasized close reading, and criticism based on the texts themselves rather than on non-textual bias or non-textual history.
Both Ransom's essays and poetry are worthwhile to read. As a student in the continuing education programs of the University of Chicago I especially enjoyed the essay, "Humanism at Chicago". It is a thoughtful review of some of the thought of the humanists who made Chicago great. show less

Feb 28, 2013