Various (Corso, Gregory; Ferlinghetti, Lawrence; Lax, Robert; Lowell, Robert; Purdy, James; Rakosi, Carl; Ransom, John Crowe; Rothenberg, Jerome et al.)

New Directions in Prose and Poetry (Issue No. 31, November 1975)

New York, NY: New Directions, 1975. First Printing. Softcover. "For forty years, the successive volumes of 'New Directions in Prose and Poetry' served as vehicles for the presentation of variant trends in world literature. The latest number in the series is dedicated to the late John Crowe Ransom, a man whose critical perceptions were instrumental in developing the interpretative tools appropriate to modernism" (from Back Cover). Offered here is a particularly inspired installment in the lauded series of New Directions 'annuals,' "New Directions in Prose and Poetry," -- Issue No. 31 (of November 1975), dedicated (as the flap copy qtd. above triumphantly relays to John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974), who had died the year before this muscular anthology saw publication. A noted poet and critic, Ransom "was intimately connected to the early 20th Century literary movement known as the Fugitives, later the Southern Agrarians," -- a Southern slice of Modernism whose roots trace back to Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Ransom--who in 1915, was a member of the university's English faculty--began an informal series of soiree-workshops in which "trends in American life and literature" were discussed. The unifying thread (besides Ransom's tastemaking leadership) was actually more of a 'unifying sentiment,' -- once evinced by the name they first adopted: the "Fugitives." While later nested under the more, shall we say, "housebroken" category of 'Southern Agrarians," Ransom's Fugitives "opposed both the traditional sentimentality of Southern writing and the increasingly frantic pace of life as the turbulent war years gave way to the Roaring Twenties." In 1922, Ransom & his "fugitives" reached what many consider their apex (as a united front, anyway), having "recorded their concerns in a magazine of verse entitled the 'Fugitive,' which, though it appeared little more than a dozen times after the first issue was published in 1922, proved to be in the vanguard of a new literary movement—Agrarianism—and a new way of analyzing works of art—the New Criticism." In addition to thematically being, well, held Ransom by the influence of the vaunted modernist earlier described, this issue features a bevy of "regulars," or "familiar faces" perhaps nearer our wheelhouse or métier. Found like squatters amongst the contributors, we have Gregory Corso ("Eyes"); Lawrence Ferlinghetti (the "Populist Manifesto," one of Your Devoted Managing Curator's personal favorites), & Ethnopoeteicist Extraordinaire, Jerome Rothenberg ("The Pearl") . In addition to these, one finds the enigmatic Robert Lax ("from the Kalymnos Journals"), James Purdy ("Some of These Days") & the exquisitely tortured "Confessional" poet, "Robert Lowell ("John Crowe Ransom: A Tribute"). Trade-softcover format journal-anthology: the first (and only) printing of this formidable, eulogizing) anthology. In fine condition with minor-to-moderate shelf-wear, bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; faint rubbing, some age-typical toning, yellowing, & intimations of browning at same (inc. at/near rightmost fine-edge of back cover), all modestly voiced. Fine. [Item #5238]

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