Politics and Sexual Identity in the Life of American Literary Critic F.O. Matthiessen, 1902-1950

FAIN: FEL-257500-18

Michael T. Thurston
Smith College (Northampton, MA 01060-2916)

A book-length study on the life and times of literary critic F. O. Matthiessen [1902-1950].  

This biography of literary critic F.O. Matthiessen narratively interweaves his life and work, showing how his sexual identity and progressive politics informed his literary analyses, especially in his classic 1941 book, The American Renaissance. Where hagiographic accounts after his 1950 suicide emphasized his death, and where critical examinations of his work focus on his formalism and its limitations, this biography shows how Matthiessen’s life and work shared values and commitments. More than this, by situating Matthiessen in the communities and institutions he worked in--from the Harvard English department to the Progressive Party and the Salzburg Seminar--I develop historical understanding of how a semi-closeted gay man conducted his personal life, how the non-Communist political left thrived on university campuses, and how repression along lines of sexuality and politics produced both brilliant responses and tragic personal outcomes.

Associated Products

F. O. Matthiessen's Modernist Hawthorne (Article)
Title: F. O. Matthiessen's Modernist Hawthorne
Author: Michael Thurston
Abstract: F.O. Matthiessen and Newton Arvin both wrote important scholarship on the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arvin’s book appearing in 1929 (reviewed by Matthiessen in the New Republic in 1930) and Matthiessen’s book-within-a book, his section on Hawthorne in American Renaissance, in 1941. In their treatment of Hawthorne, these two vital critics of nineteenth-century American literature interestingly diverge. In this essay, I explore the difference between Arvin’s and Matthiessen’s analyses of Hawthorne, and I offer a couple of explanations (his interest in literary modernism and in the interaction of form and context enabled by emerging modes of formalist criticism) for the distinctive turn that Matthiessen’s reading of Hawthorne takes, a turn that puts him at odds with the main current of Arvin’s reading.
Year: 2019
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Nathaniel Hawthorne Review
Publisher: Nathaniel Hawthorne Review

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