American Literature: Biographies

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Lionel Trilling

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | Copyright

Lionel Trilling 1905–75, American critic, author, and teacher, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (B.A., 1925; M.A., 1926; Ph.D., 1938). He began teaching literature at Columbia in 1932 and became a full professor in 1948. His essays—collected as The Liberal Imagination (1950), The Opposing Self (1955), A Gathering of Fugitives (1956), and Beyond Culture (1965)—combine social, psychological, and political insights with literary criticism and scholarship. Other works include a number of short stories and a novel, Middle of the Journey (1947); Matthew Arnold (1939), a pioneering use of Freudian psychology in analyzing a public figure and his work; E. M. Forster (1943); The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1962); and Sincerity and Authenticity (1972). His wife, Diana Trilling (Diana Rubin Trilling), 1905–96, b. New York City, was a literary and cultural critic. Long a reviewer for the Nation magazine, she collected many of her pieces in Reviewing the Forties (1978). Her works also include We Must March My Darlings (1977), an essay collection; Mrs. Harris (1981), a study of and meditation on a murder trial; and The Beginning of the Journey (1993), a memoir of the Trillings and their marriage.

Bibliography: See the posthumous collections of his essays, The Last Decade (1979), ed. by D. Trilling, and The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent (2000), ed. by L. Wieseltier, and his unfinished novel, The Journey Abandoned (2008), ed. by G. Murphy; studies by R. Boyers (1977), M. Krupnick (1986), D. T. O'Hara (1988), J. Rodden, ed. (1999), and A. Kirsch (2011).

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"Lionel Trilling." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

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Trilling, Lionel

The Oxford Companion to American Literature | 1995 | | Copyright

Trilling, Lionel (1905–75), professor of English at Columbia, also affiliated with the Kenyon School of English, The Kenyon Review, and the Partisan Review. He wrote the studies Matthew Arnold (1939) and E.M. Forster (1943), and his other critical writings include The Liberal Imagination (1950) and The Opposing Self (1955), essays; Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture (1956), lectures; A Gathering of Fugitives (1956), brief essays; The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1962); Beyond Culture (1965), essays; Sincerity and Authenticity (1972); and Mind in the Modern World (1973). The Middle of the Journey (1947) is a novel of the moral and political climate of the 1930s and '40s. Posthumous publications include his Collected Works (12 vols., 1978–80) and Speaking of Literature and Society (1980), previously uncollected critical writings. Diana Trilling was his wife.

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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Trilling, Lionel." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Trilling, Lionel." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-TrillingLionel.html

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Trilling, Lionel." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-TrillingLionel.html

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Trilling, Lionel

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | | Copyright

Trilling, Lionel (1905–75), American critic, whose many works include The Liberal Imagination (1950), The Opposing Self (1955), and Sincerity and Authenticity (1972). His works are written from the standpoint of liberal humanism and manifest an admiration for Freud. He also wrote one novel, The Middle of the Journey (1947).

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Trilling, Lionel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Trilling, Lionel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-TrillingLionel.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Trilling, Lionel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-TrillingLionel.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

	The Beginning of the Journey: The Marriage of Lionel and Diana Trilling. Magazine article from: The Washington Monthly; 12/1/1993
	Lionel Trilling and the end of Romanticism. Magazine article from: Studies in Romanticism; 9/22/2004
	A modern Burke: Lionel Trilling was also a liberal reformer of conservative... Magazine article from: The American Conservative; 3/9/2009