Books by John Crowe Ransom

The Complete Poems

by Philip Larkin, John Crowe Ransom

The complete poems of the most admired British poet of his generation

This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin's poems. In addition to those that appear in Collected Poems (1988) and Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse―by turns scurrilous, satirical, affectionate, and sentimental―that had been tucked away in his letters.
For the first time, Larkin's poems are given a comprehensive commentary. This draws critically upon, and substantially extends, the accumulated scholarship on Larkin, and covers closely relevant historical contexts, persons and places, allusions and echoes, and linguistic usage. Prominence is given to the poet's comments on his own work, which often outline the circumstances that gave rise to a poem or state that he was trying to achieve. Larkin often played down his literariness, but his poetry enrichingly alludes to and echoes the writings of many others. Archie Burnett's commentary establishes Larkin as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected.

The Complete Poems

by Philip Larkin, John Crowe Ransom

This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin's poems. In addition to those that appear in Collected Poems (1988) and Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse―by turns scurrilous, satirical, affectionate, and sentimental―that had been tucked away in his letters.
For the first time, Larkin's poems are given a comprehensive commentary. This draws critically upon, and substantially extends, the accumulated scholarship on Larkin, and covers closely relevant historical contexts, persons and places, allusions and echoes, and linguistic usage. Prominence is given to the poet's comments on his own poems, which often outline the circumstances that gave rise to a poem or state what he was trying to achieve. Larkin often played down his literariness, but his poetry enrichingly alludes to and echoes the writings of many others; Archie Burnett's commentary establishes him as a more complex and more literary poet than many readers have suspected.

The Complete Poems

by Philip Larkin, John Crowe Ransom

John Crowe Ransom distinguished himself as one of the South's foremost poets and literary critics of the twentieth century, cultivating a poetic style that celebrated rural, agrarian life as an antidote to the increasing complexity of modern society. In the process, he helped formulate a new method of literary analysis, the New Criticism, which advocated close reading of texts with attention to their form and internal meaning. His students included such prominent literary figures as Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, and E. L. Doctorow. Ransom's poetry, which he revised extensively throughout his lifetime, offers a concise representation of his ideas about art, life, and the vocation of poets.

The Complete Poems contains every poem that Ransom wrote, including his three books--Poems About God, Chills and Fever, and Two Gentlemen in Bonds--as well as the additional poems that appeared in the three editions of his Selected Poems, one of which won the National Book Award in 1964. The volume also collects poems that appeared only in newspapers and magazines, as well as a handful of unpublished poems that Ransom left in manuscript at the time of his death.

This variorum edition establishes the definitive text of each poem, collating Ransom's elaborate revisions. Detailed annotations identify sources, parse obscure allusions, and highlight the archaic language that constitutes a significant aspect of Ransom's poetic technique. The volume also contains introductions to each of Ransom's separately published volumes, giving the background of their composition and an account of their contemporary reception. Edited by Ashby Bland Crowder, this volume constitutes a definitive scholarly edition of John Crowe Ransom's poetry, providing an essential resource for the study of twentieth-century American literature.

The Complete Poems

by Philip Larkin, John Crowe Ransom

The Complete Poems contains every poem that John Crowe Ransom wrote, including his three books―Poems About God, Chills and Fever, and Two Gentlemen in Bonds―as well as the additional poems that appeared in the three editions of his Selected Poems. The volume also collects poems that were published only in newspapers and magazines, as well as a handful of poems that Ransom left in manuscript at the time of his death.

This variorum edition establishes the definitive text of each poem, collating Ransom’s elaborate revisions, which he carried out throughout his lifetime. Detailed annotations identify sources, parse obscure allusions, and highlight the archaic language central to Ransom’s poetic technique. Edited by Ashby Bland Crowder, this volume constitutes an authoritative scholarly edition of Ransom’s poetry, providing an essential resource for the study of twentieth-century American literature.

Land!: The Case for an Agrarian Economy

by John Crowe Ransom

The accomplished poet and scholar John Crowe Ransom made profound contributions to twentieth-century American literature. As a teacher at Vanderbilt University he was also a leading member of the Southern Agrarian movement and a contributor to the movement's manifesto I'll Take My Stand. Ransom's Land! is a previously unpublished work that unites Ransom's poetic sensibilities with an examination of economics at the height of the Great Depression. Politically charged with Ransom's aesthetic beliefs about literature and his agrarian interpretation of economics, Land! was long thought to have been burned by its author after he failed to find a publisher. Thankfully, the manuscript was discovered, and we are now able to read this unique and interesting contribution to the Southern Agrarian revival.
After the publication of I'll Take My Stand in 1930, Ransom, who provided the book's Statement of Principles in addition to its lead essay, became convinced that the book had not adequately proposed an economic alternative to Northern industrialism, which had fairly obliterated the Southern way of life. Land! was Ransom's attempt to fill this gap. In it he presents the weaknesses inherent in capitalism and argues convincingly that socialism is not only an inadequate alternative but inimical to American sensibilities. He proposes instead that agrarianism, which could flourish alongside capitalism, would relieve the problems of unemployment and the "permanently unemployed." In particular, he argues that what he calls the "amphibian farmer"―who can survive in both a monetary and a non-monetary economy― would never, so long as he relied on himself for necessities, have to fear unemployment. America, Ransom claims, is unique in offering this opportunity because, unlike in European countries, land is plentiful.