Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

It is only in the twentieth century that “Writers on the Left” became a widespread term for cultural workers with socialist convictions and commitments. Yet poets, novelists, critics, and playwrights have been so habitually and ubiquitously drawn towards radical politics during the past 100 years that the topic may seem gratuitous as a discrete category. What is especially telling about the construction of “Writers on the Left” as an academic field is that, prior to World War II, many books on United States literature attend no differently to radical and revolutionary authors than to others, customarily placing now-forgotten Left-wingers at center stage. Halford E. Luccock's American Mirror: Social, Ethical and Religious Aspects of American Literature, 1930–1940 ( 1941 ) moves in its chapters evenly between writers who are today seen as part of the canon, such as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, and many Left-wing authors now treated exclusively in books and articles about the Left, such as Fielding Burke, Joy Davidman, Pietro Di Donato, and Albert Maltz. Horace Gregory and Marya Zaturenska's A History of American Poetry, 1900–1940 ( 1942 ) apportions major sections to Leftists Louis Untermeyer, John Wheelwright, Lola Ridge, and Kenneth Fearing, all of whom are nearly invisible in current histories of United States poetry. After World War II, it is mainly in specialized ... log in or subscribe to read full text