Mark Van Doren (1894–1972)
Author of Shakespeare
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Works by Mark Van Doren
Insights into Literature by van Doren, Mark ; Jewett, Arno ; Achtenhagen, Olga ; Early, Margaret (1965) 7 copies
The new Invitation to learning 6 copies
The Oxford Book of American Prose — Editor — 4 copies
Home with Hazel and Other Stories 4 copies
Collected stories 3 copies
Morning Worship and Other Poems 3 copies
The transients 3 copies
Selección de cuentos 2 copies
The Mayfield deer 2 copies
The Careless Clock: Poems About Children in the Family, signed by the American, author, poet and editor. (1947) 2 copies
Sex Determination and Sexual Development, Volume 83 (Current Topics in Developmental Biology) (2008) 2 copies
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 2 copies
Harvest Poems: 1910-1960 2 copies
Carl Sandburg: With a bibliography of Sandburg materials in the collections of the Library of Congress (1969) 2 copies
The Noble Voice 1 copy
ENJOYING POETRY 1 copy
In That Far Land 1 copy
Never, Never Ask His Name 1 copy
Mortal summer 1 copy
Walt Whitman 1 copy
The Transparent Tree 1 copy
Associated Works
American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Volume Two: E. E. Cummings to May Swenson (2000) — Contributor — 410 copies
4 Plays: As You Like It; A Midsummer Night's Dream; The Tempest; Twelfth Night (1948) — Introduction, some editions — 283 copies
The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now (2008) — Contributor — 156 copies
Gentlemen, Scholars and Scoundrels: A Treasury of the Best of Harper's Magazine from 1850 to the Present (1959) — Contributor — 56 copies
Adventures of the Mind, from The Saturday Evening Post [First series] (1959) — Introduction — 31 copies
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 8, April 1981 — Contributor — 3 copies
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 10, June 1977 — Contributor — 1 copy
Columbia poetry, 1936 — Editor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1894-06-13
- Date of death
- 1972-12-10
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Hope, Illinois, USA
- Place of death
- Torrington, Connecticut, USA
- Places of residence
- Hope, Illinois, USA (birth)
Torrington, Connecticut, USA (death) - Education
- Columbia University (PhD, 1920)
- Occupations
- poet
teacher
literary critic - Relationships
- Van Doren, Charles (son)
Van Doren, Carl (brother)
Van Doren, John (son) - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature, 1940)
- Awards and honors
- Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (1967)
Emerson-Thoreau Medal (1963)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 92
- Also by
- 46
- Members
- 1,135
- Popularity
- #22,616
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 15
- ISBNs
- 47
- Languages
- 1
- Favorited
- 1
Of the Don, Van Doren claims, “He is that rare thing in literature, a completely created character. He is so real that we cannot be sure we understand him.” Even someone who hasn’t read the book, but seen illustrations, knows Cervantes has paired him with an unlikely squire, Sancho Panza, hardly less memorable than the Don. Van Doren shows how the relationship evolves from master and servant to two friends who love each other.
Van Doren argues, based on Don Quixote’s moments of lucidity and the sagacity of his speeches, that, contrary to the repeated assertion in the book that he is mad, he is, on the contrary, aware of what he is doing. In this reading, the Don’s knight-errantry was a hoax meant to entertain and edify the world. When Don Quixote saw that he’d failed in this, he abandoned the hoax (473).
Similarly, Cervantes misdirects us about Sancho Panza. He is illiterate and seems to have only his next meal and a good night’s sleep in mind. Yet when given a chance to govern a town, he displays a native insight into human nature, to the astonishment of those around him, watching for him to fail.
Van Doren characterizes Don Quixote as two interconnected series: adventures and conversations. It is the adventures that stick in the popular imagination. Van Doren asserts, however, that more is “lost by ignoring the speaker” than the deeds.
Van Doren concludes that Don Quixote “is the most perfect knight that ever lived; the only one, in fact, we can believe.” Rather than achieving his avowed aim of destroying the literature of knight-errantry through satire, Cervantes has saved it. He produced “the one treatment of the subject that can be read forever.”… (more)