Edmund Wilson

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Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), from Travels in Two Democracies (1936). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Edmund Wilson, Jr. (May 8, 1895 - June 12, 1972) was an American poet, social and literary critic, and noted man of letters..

Life

Youth

Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His parents were Helen Mather (Kimball) and Edmund Wilson, Sr., a lawyer who served as New Jersey Attorney General.

Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory boarding school, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1912. At Hill, Wilson served as the editor-in-chief of the school's literary magazine, The Record. From 1912 to 1916, he was educated at Princeton University.

He began his professional writing career as a reporter for the New York Sun, and served in the army during World War I.

Career

Wilson was the managing editor of Vanity Fair in 1920 and 1921, and later served as associate editor of The New Republic and as a book reviewer for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. His works influenced novelists Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Floyd Dell, and Theodore Dreiser. He wrote plays, poems, and novels, but his greatest influence was literary criticism.

He played a recurring role throughout Edna St Vincent Millay's life, from the time she was a foreign correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, 1921 to 1923, to the end of her life.(Citation needed)

In a celebrated essay on the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, "Tales of the Marvellous and the Ridiculous" (New Yorker, November 1945; later collected in Classics and Commercials), Wilson condemned Lovecraft's tales as "hackwork".

Edmund Wilson is also well known for his heavy criticism of J.R.R. Tolkien's work The Lord of the Rings, which he referred to as "juvenile trash", saying "Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form."

Wilson was interested in modern culture as a whole, and many of his writings go beyond the realm of pure literary criticism. His early works are heavily influenced by the ideas of Freud and Marx, reflecting his deep interest in their work.

Wilson lobbied for the creation of a series of classic U.S. literature similar to France's Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. In 1982, 10 years after his death, The Library of America series was launched. Wilson's writing was included in the Library of America in 2 volumes published in 2007.

Context and relationships

Wilson's critical works helped foster public appreciation for several novelists: Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Vladimir Nabokov. He was instrumental in establishing the modern evaluation of the works of Dickens and Kipling.(Citation needed) Wilson was a friend of philosopher Isaiah Berlin.

He attended Princeton with Fitzgerald, who referred to Wilson as his "intellectual conscience". After Fitzgerald's early death (at the age of 44) from a heart attack in December 1940, Wilson edited 2 books by Fitzgerald, (The Last Tycoon and The Crack-Up) for posthumous publication, donating his editorial services to help Fitzgerald's family. Wilson was also a friend of Nabokov, with whom he corresponded extensively and whose writing he introduced to Western audiences. However, their friendship was marred by Wilson's cool reaction to Nabokov's Lolita and irretrievably damaged by Wilson's public criticism of what he considered Nabokov's eccentric translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.

Wilson had many marriages and affairs. His 1st wife was Mary Blair, who had been in Eugene O'Neill's theatrical company. His 2nd wife was Margaret Canby. After her death in a freak accident 2 years after their marriage, Wilson wrote a long eulogy to her and said later that he felt guilt over having neglected her. From 1938 to 1946, he was married to Mary McCarthy who, like Wilson, was well known for her literary criticism. She admired enormously Wilson's breadth and depth of intellect, and they co-operated on numerous works. In an article in The New Yorker, Louis Menand says "The marriage to McCarthy was a mistake that neither side wanted to be first to admit. When they fought, he would retreat into his study and lock the door; she would set piles of paper on fire and try to push them under it."

He wrote many letters to Anaïs Nin, criticizing her for her surrealistic style as opposed to the realism that was then deemed correct writing, and ended by asking for her hand, saying he would "teach her to write",(Citation needed) which she took as an insult. Except for a brief falling out following the publication of I Thought of Daisy, in which Wilson portrayed Edna St Vincent Millay as Rita Cavanaugh, Wilson and Millay remained friends throughout life. He later married Elena Mumm Thornton (previously married to James Worth Thornton), but continued to have extramarital relationships.

The Cold War

Wilson was also an outspoken critic of US Cold War policies. He refused to pay his federal income tax from 1946 to 1955 and was later investigated by the Internal Revenue Service.

After a settlement, Wilson received a $25,000 fine, rather than the original $69,000 sought by the IRS. He received no jail time. In his book The Cold War and the Income Tax: A Protest (1963) Wilson argued that, as a result of competitive militarization against the Soviet Union, the civil liberties of Americans were being paradoxically infringed under the guise of defense from Communism. For these reasons, Wilson also opposed involvement in the Vietnam War.

Wilson's view of President Lyndon Johnson was decidedly negative. Historian Eric Goldman writes in his memoir The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson that when Goldman, on behalf of President Johnson, invited Wilson to read from Wilson's writings at a White House Festival Of The Arts in 1965: "Wilson declined with a brusqueness that I never experienced before or after in the case of an invitation in the name of the President and First Lady."

For the academic year 1964-1965, he was a Fellow on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University.

"Edmund Wilson Regrets..."

Throughout his career, Wilson would often answer fan mail and outside requests for his time with this printed postcard:

Edmund Wilson regrets that it is impossible for him to: Read manuscripts, write books and articles to order, write forewords or introductions, make statements for publicity purposes, do any kind of editorial work, judge literary contests, give interviews, conduct educational courses, deliver lectures, give talks or make speeches, broadcast or appear on television, take part in writer's congresses, answer questionnaires, contribute to or take part in symposiums or 'panels' of any kind, contribute manuscripts for sales, donate copies of his books to libraries, autograph books for strangers, allow his name to be used on letterheads, supply personal information about himself, supply photographs of himself, supply opinions on literary or other subjects.

Writing

Edmund Wilson A Life in Literature

Axel's Castle: A study in the imaginative literature of 1870-1930 (1931) was a sweeping survey of Symbolism. It covered Arthur Rimbaud, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (author of Axel), W.B. Yeats, Paul Valéry, T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

In his landmark book, To the Finland Station (1940), Wilson studied the course of European socialism, from the 1824 discovery by Jules Michelet of the ideas of Vico culminating in the 1917 arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station of Saint Petersburg to lead the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution.

Quotations

On Ernest Hemingway: "But for reasons I cannot attempt to explain, something dreadful seems to happen to Hemingway as soon as he begins to write in the first person."

On Katherine Ann Porter: "[She] writes with a purity and precision almost unique in contemporary American fiction." Though “the meaning of [her] stories is elusive..." they are "beautifully porportioned and finished ... absolutely a first-rate artist.”

On Kay Boyle: "I picked up Kay Boyle’s Avalanche in the hope of finding a novel worth reading, and have been somewhat taken aback to get nothing but a piece of pure rubbish."

On Wallace Stevens: "Mr. Stevens is the master of style. His gift for combining words is baffling and fantastic, but sure: even when you do not know what he is saying, you know he is saying it well."

On James Joyce: "Joyce has little respect for the capacities of the readers’s attention.... Ulysses suffers from an excess of design rather than from a lack of it.... Joyce has half buried his story under the virtuosity of his technical style."

On H.L. Mencken: "The striking thing about Mencken’s mind is its ruthlessness and rigidity…Though one of the fairest of critics, he is the least pliant.”

Recognition

On December 6, 1963, Wilson was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.

His family's summer home at Talcottville, New York, known as Edmund Wilson House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Publications

Poetry

• Poets, Farewell!, New York: Scribner, 1929.
• Note-books of Night. San Francisco: Colt Press, 1942; London: Secker & Warburg, 1945.
• Night Thoughts. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1961.

Novels

• I Thought of Daisy. New York: Scribner, 1929; London: W.H. Allen, 1929; Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2001.
• Memoirs of Hecate County. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1946.

Short fiction

• The Higher Jazz (edited by Neale Reinetz). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 1998.

Non-fiction

• The Scrolls from the Dead Sea. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955; London: W.H. Allen, 1955.
• Red, Black, Blond and Olive: Studies in four civilizations: Zuni; Haiti; Soviet Russia; Israel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956; London: W.H. Allen, 1956.
• A Piece of My Mind: Reflections at sixty, New York: Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, 1956.
• Apologies to the Iroquois, New York: Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, 1959.
• The Cold War and the Income Tax: A protest. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1963; London: W.H. Allen, 1964.
• O Canada: An American's notes on Canadian culture. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1965.
• Europe without Baedeker: Sketches among the ruins of Italy, Greece and England, with notes from a European diary, 1963-1964. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1966; London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967.
• A Prelude: Landscapes, characters, and conversations from the earlier years of my life. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1967.
• Upstate: Records and recollections of northern New York. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1971.
• A Window on Russia: For the use of foreign readers. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1972.
• Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1978.

Literary Criticism

• Axel's Castle: A study in the imaginative literature of 1870-1930. New York & London: Scribner, 1931.
• The Triple Thinkers: Ten Essays on Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1938;
  • revised & expanded as The Triple Thinkers: Twelve essays on literary subjects. New York: Oxford University Press, 1948.
• The Wound and the Bow: Seven studies in literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941; New York: Oxford University Press], 1941.
• Patriotic Gore: Studies in the literature of the American Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962; London: Andre Deutsch, 1962.
• The Dead Sea Scrolls, 1947-1969. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
• The Devils and Canon Barham: Ten essays on poets, novelists, and monsters. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1973.
• Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 30s: The Shores of Light / Axel's Castle / Uncollected Reviews (edited by Lewis M. Dabney). New York: Library of America, 2007. ISBN 978-1-59853-013-1
• Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1930s & 40s: The Triple Thinkers / The Wound and the Bow / Classics and Commercials / Uncollected Reviews(edited by Lewis M. Dabney). New York: Library of America, 2007. ISBN 978-1-59853-014-8

History

• To the Finland Station: A study in the writing and acting of history. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1940; London: Martin Secker, 1940.
• Classics and Commercials: A literary chronicle of the forties. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, 1950.
• The Shores of Light: A literary chronicle of the twenties and thirties. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, & Young, 1952; London: Allen, 1952.
• The American Earthquake: A documentary of the twenties and thirties. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958; London: Allen, 1958.
• The Bit Between My Teeth: A literary chronicle of 1950-1965. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1967.

Collected editions

• The Portable Edmund Wilson. New York: Viking, 1983.
• From the Uncollected Edmund Wilson (edited by Janet Groth & David Castronovo). Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1995.
• The Edmund Wilson Reader (edited by Lewis M. Dabney). New York: Da Capo Press, 1997.

Edited

• The Shock of Recognition: The development of literature in the U.S., recorded by the men who made it. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1943. Volume I: The Nineteenth Century, Volume II: The Twentieth Century

Letters and journals

• The Twenties: From notebooks and diaries of the period (edited by Leon Edel). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1975; London: Macmillan, 1975.
• Letters on Literature and Politics, 1912-1972 (edited by Elena Wilson). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1977; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.
• The Thirties: From notebooks and diaries of the period (edited by Leon Edel). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1980; London: Macmillan, 1980.
• The Forties: From notebooks and diaries of the period (edited by Leon Edel). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1983.
• The Fifties: From notebooks and diaries of the period (edited by Leon Edel). New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, 1986; London: Macmillan, 1986.
• Edmund Wilson: The man in letters (edited by David Castronovo & Janet Groth. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1992.
• The Sixties: The last journal, 1960-1972 (edited by Lewis M. Dabney). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1993.
• The Nabokov-Wilson Letters: Correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, 1940-1971. New York: Harper, 1979; London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1979;
  • revised & expanded as Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940-1971 (edited by Karlinsky). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of U.S. poets
• List of literary critics

References

Fonds

• Edmund Wilson Papers Photographs, artifacts, and documents from Wilson's personal papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
• Edmund Wilson papers Some of Wilson's personal papers and private library are housed at the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa

External links

Poems

• Edmund Wilson, Jr. in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "G.H.Q., January 1919," "Not Here"
• Edmund Wilson 1895-1972 at the Poetry Foundation
• Edmund Wilson at AllPoetry (3 poems)

Prose

• "The Poetry of Drouth", review of The Waste Land

Books

• Works by Edmund Wilson at Internet Archive

Audio / video

• Edmund Wilson at YouTube

About

• Edmund Wilson in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Edmund Wilson at Spartacus Educational.
• Edmund Wilson at NNDB
• Edmund Wilson at Penn State Libraries.
• The Poetry of Edmund Wilson at CliveJames.com.
• "Edmund Wilson: The author at sixty" in The New Criterion
• The Other Edmund Wilson at The American Prospect
• Wilson, Reuel, "Edmund Wilson's Cape Cod Landscape" in Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2004
• Edmund Wilson at Find a Grave