Mark Van Doren

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Van Doren, Mark [Albert] (1894–1972), brother of Carl Van Doren, was also a professor of English at Columbia (1920–59) and literary editor of The Nation (1924–28). He wrote critical studies of Thoreau (1916), Dryden (1920), Shakespeare (1939), and Hawthorne (1949). Major criticism is collected in Private Reader (1942), The Happy Critic (1961), and other volumes; and he published his views in Liberal Education (1942) and studied ten great poems in The Noble Voice (1946). His novels include The Transients (1935) and Windless Cabins (1940), the latter a study of a youth haunted by fear after inadvertently killing an evil man. Nobody Say a Word (1953) and Home with Hazel (1957) are among the sources of Collected Stories (1962). His poetry includes Spring Thunder (1924), bucolic verse; Jonathan Gentry (1931), a narrative; Collected Poems (1939, Pulitzer Prize); The Mayfield Deer (1941), retelling a frontier legend; Our Lady Peace (1942) and The Seven Sleepers (1944), war poems; The Country New Year (1946), lyrics on rural life; New Poems (1948); Morning Worship (1960); Collected and New Poems (1963); and Good Morning (1973). The Last Days of Lincoln (1959) is a play. He wrote an Autobiography (1958), and his wife Dorothy wrote The Professor and I (1958).

Mark Van Doren 1894-1973, American poet and critic, b. Hope, Vermilion co., Ill., grad. Univ. of Illinois, 1914, Ph.D. Columbia, 1920; brother of Carl Van Doren. He taught English at Columbia (1920-59), where he was a renowned and dedicated teacher. He was also on the staff of the Nation (1924-28, 1935-38). With Carl Van Doren he wrote American and British Literature since 1890 (1939). He wrote critical studies of various authors, including John Dryden (1920) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1949), compiled several anthologies, and collected his lectures on poetry in The Noble Voice (1946). As a poet Van Doren was deeply influenced by Wordsworth. Among his volumes of poems are Collected Poems, 1922-1938 (1939; Pulitzer Prize) and Morning Worship and Other Poems (1959). Other writings include novels and a play, The Last Days of Lincoln (1959). He also wrote the influential Liberal Education (1943).

Bibliography: See his collected stories (3 vol., 1962-68) and collected poems (1963 and 1969); his autobiography (1958); the memoirs of his wife, Dorothy Graffe Van Doren, The Professor and I (1959).