Randolph Silliman Bourne

Randolph Silliman Bourne , 1886-1918, American author, b. Bloomfield, N.J., grad. Columbia Univ., 1912. His critical examination of the American way of life established him as a spokesman for his generation. The books he wrote on progressive education, The Gary Schools (1916) and Education and Living (1917), reflect the influence of John Dewey . Bourne opposed U.S. entry into World War I and wrote pacifist and nonintervention articles, which were collected posthumously in Untimely Papers (1919).

Bibliography: See his History of a Literary Radical (ed. by V. W. Brooks, 1920); letters (ed. by E. J. Sandeen, 1981); J. A. Moreau, Randolph Bourne (1966); B. Clayton, Forgotten Prophet (1984).

Bourne, Randolph Silliman (1886–1918), while a student at Columbia, from which he graduated in 1913, and during the remainder of his short life, established himself as a spokesman of his generation through his critical examination of American institutions, attacks on big‐business civilization, and criticism of sentimental ideas in literature and elsewhere. His books, Youth and Life (1913), The Gary Schools (1916), and Education and Living (1917), show him to be a disciple of John Dewey although he felt pragmatism failed to direct a war‐torn world. His pacifist articles were posthumously collected as Untimely Papers (1919), and his philosophical and critical views are summed up in The History of a Literary Radical (1920), edited by Van Wyck Brooks.

Bourne, Randolph (1886–1918), essayist, social critic, dissenter during World War I.A New Jersey native educated at Columbia University (B.A., 1912; M.A., 1913), Bourne came under the influence of John Dewey's pragmatism and ideas clustered around the Progressive movement. He made his mark quickly in New York City's liberal intellectual community by contributing prolifically to the Atlantic, the New Republic, the Seven Arts, and the Dial magazines. His books—Youth and Life (1913), The Gary Schools (1916), the posthumous History of a Literary Radical (1920) and others—spoke eloquently for youthful idealism, a cosmopolitan cultural community, a vital literary tradition, progressive education, and an ethnic diversity he called “trans‐National America.”

Although physically handicapped from birth, his face twisted, his back deformed, his growth stunted, Bourne was rich in friends and wrote movingly about the value of friendship. Women appreciated his sensitivity and feminism. In 1918, at the time of his early death from the worldwide influenza epidemic, he was engaged to a beautiful actress, Esther Cornell. During World War I, his conscience and insights into the role of power and wartime hysteria compelled him to dissent from the prevailing wisdom that an Allied victory would further peace and democracy. Bourne's searing wartime dissents ensured the demise of the Seven Arts; made him anathema to Dewey and many former editors and friends; and forced him to turn his attention to noncontroversial literary themes and to an overview of The State, a work unfinished at his death.
See also Cultural Pluralism; Progressive Era.

Bibliography

Bruce Clayton , Forgotten Prophet: The Life of Randolph Bourne, 1984.

Bruce Clayton