1888-John Crowe Ransom was born on April 30th, in Pulaski, Tennessee
to James Ransom, a Methodist minister, and Ella Crowe.
1903-He entered Vanderbilt University in Nashville at age fifteen.
1909-After graduation in 1909 he studied classics as a Rhodes Scholar
at Oxford from 1910 to 1913.
1914-He was appointed an instructorship in Vanderbilt’s English department.
1919- He published his first book, “Poems about God”. This book
of poems received warm praise from both Robert Frost and Robert Graves
1920- He married Robb Reavill and would later have three kids.
1924- “Chills and Fever” was published and in
1927- “Two Gentlemen in Bonds” was published. “Two Gentlemen
in Bonds” was originally in a magazine put out by Ransom called “The Fugitive”,
which he printed from 1922-1925.
1924- Ransom’s best known poem “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”
was published.
1927- Ransom believed that he had exhausted his themes and quit producing
poems after that.
1930- Ransom and 11 other Southern poets published a collection of
essays called “I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition”.
In this book he argued “that it was only in an agricultural society that
humanity had a true perception of its place in the universe: as beings
subject to suffering and death; the industrialized society tended to dull
this sense of human contingency and so falsified the perception of life.”
1945- After much consideration and ridicule he had publicly changed
his position.
1930- He published “God without Thunder: An Unorthodox Defense of Orthodoxy.”
This was to argue the need to revive the Old Testament God who represented
harshness than to exalt a gentle Jesus. However, this point failed
when Ransom admitted that “religion is simply a creation of man and that
the modern mind cannot accept many of its tradition premises.”
1937- He moved to Kenyon College where he was editor of a new journal
“The Kenyon Review” from 1939 to 1959.
1941- He wrote “Wanted: An Ontological Critic”. In this he argued
that “the differentia of poetry as discourse is an ontological one.
It treats an order of existence, a grade of objectivity, which cannot be
treated in scientific discourse.” A lot of his career after this
was spent trying to back up these points. He also published a book
of essays called “New Criticism” in this year telling people how they should
critique literature.
1951- He won the Bollingen Prize for Poetry
1959- Ransom retired from teaching and editorship of the Kenyon Review
in.
1964- he received the National Book Award for his Selected Poems published
the previous year.
1974- Ransom died in his sleep on July 3rd, 1974.
John Crowe Ransom was very much a part of the New Criticism Movement in literature. While he was a part of a group called "The Fugitives" he had a great deal of involvement with the ways that literature should be read and dissected. This involvement with "The Fugitives" is what influenced him into writing poetry in the first place. Through writing poetry and being involved in "The Fugitives" he was able to help shape the way poetry is studied and read today.
Websites for Ransom:
http://martinlib.igiles.net/guides/rg_fa.html
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/jcrbib.html
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=12
Works cited:
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ransom/life.htm
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/jcrbib.html