Allen Tate

In the early 1920s, this gifted poet fell in love with famous American novelist Caroline Ferguson Gordon. They lived in Greenwich Village, Manhattan for some time before moving to New York.

In May 1925, the two writers got married in New York, and had a daughter, Nancy, three years later.

They got divorced after twenty years of marriage, remarried a year later, and separated again, citing irreconcilable differences, even though they were friends throughout their lives.

John Orley Allen Tate was born to entrepreneur John Orley and his wife Eleanor Parke Custis Varnell, on November 19, 1899, in Winchester, Kentucky, United States.

From 1916-17, the young boy attended the 'Cincinnati Conservatory of Music' in Ohio, to pursue his training in violin. The next year he joined the 'Vanderbilt University' in Nashville, Tennessee, where he got acquainted to poet Robert Penn Warren.

Both the budding poets became associated with a literary organization called 'Fugitives', formed by American poet John Crowe Ransom. The group comprised of young poets, and aimed at writing poetry that emphasized on 'meter' and 'rhyme' but not so much on emotions.

Tate also began teaching at Ohio's 'Kenyon College', accompanied by his mentor John Crowe Ransom. Allen's formal Modern poetry highly influenced the works of his student—famous American poet Robert Lowell.

Allen travelled to New York City in 1924, and came across fellow American poet Hart Crane, who the former had been in touch with earlier. For the next few years, Tate published his writings in established journals and magazines like 'The Nation', 'Poetry', and 'Hound & Horn', on a freelance basis. Meanwhile he found work as a janitor in order to earn a living.

In 1928, the poet travelled to Europe accompanied by his friends, and met popular English poet T.S. Eliot, who he held in high regard.

The same year, the former's first book of poems titled 'Mr Pope and Other Poems' was released. The compilation included 'Ode to the Confederate Dead', a poem that catapulted the poet to fame. During that time a biography named 'Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier' was also published.

In 1929, he wrote an essay, 'The Fallacy of Humanism', where he criticised the established religious systems, by saying "Religion is the only technique for the validation of values". Around the same time, he also published a biography titled 'Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall'.

This exceptional American writer’s poem 'Ode to the Confederate Dead' is considered as one of his best works. The poem is inspired by British poet T.S. Eliot's literary style, and with its setting in a graveyard, it laments the death of Confederate soldiers who have been cremated there. The setting and the characters are symbolic of the poet’s own state of mind, and ideas about death.