Tate, Allen (1899-1979), was an American poet, critic, novelist, and biographer. Tate’s writing stresses links between the present and the past. A major theme in his work is a yearning for the rural, aristocratic way of life common in the South before the Civil War (1861-1865). Many of Tate’s writings express dislike for what he regarded as the crowded, dehumanizing way of life in modern industrial society.
Tate is best known for his poetry, much of which is powerful and written in violent language. Tate’s conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1950 led to an increased concern with religion and ethics in his work. His Collected Poems: 1919-1976 was published in 1977.
As a literary critic, Tate became noted for his essays on the nature of the imagination and the value of literature. He became known for his essays about literary figures and for detailed analyses of poems. Many of his critical works were published in Essays of Four Decades (1969). Tate included both critical and autobiographical essays in Memoirs and Opinions (1975).
John Orley Allen Tate was born on Nov. 19, 1899, in Winchester, Kentucky. As a student at Vanderbilt University, he was invited by his teacher, John Crowe Ransom, to join the Fugitives along with Tate’s roommate Robert Penn Warren. This group of Southern writers hoped to preserve the cultural heritage of the South. Tate’s ties with the South can be seen in his novel The Fathers (1938) and in his biographies Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier (1928) and Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall (1929). Tate died on Feb. 9, 1979.
