The Fugitives, also known as theFugitive Poets, is the name given to a group of poets and literary scholars atVanderbilt University inNashville, Tennessee, who published a literary magazine from 1922 to 1925 calledThe Fugitive.[1]: 13 The group, primarily driven byRobert Penn Warren,John Crowe Ransom,Donald Davidson, andAllen Tate, formed a majorschool of twentieth century poetry in the United States.[1]: 13 With it, a major period of modern Southern literature began.[1]: 13 Their poetry was formal and featured traditional prosody and concrete imagery often from experiences of the ruralsouth.[2] The group has some overlap with two later movements:Southern Agrarians andNew Criticism.[1]: 11
About 1920, a group consisting of some influential teachers of literature at Vanderbilt, a fewtownies, and some students began meeting on alternate Saturday nights at the home of James Marshall Frank and his brother-in-lawSidney Mttron Hirsch on Whitland Avenue in Nashville.[3] They met as a poetry workshop with no formal connection with the university. After a couple of years, Hirsch felt their poetry was good enough to publish.[3] According to author Louise Cowan, "...half-seriously Alec Stevenson suggested as a title "The Fugitive" after a poem of Hirsch's which had been read and discussed at an earlier meeting."[4]Allen Tate stated, "...a Fugitive was quite simply a Poet: the Wanderer, or even theWandering Jew, the Outcast, the man who carries the secret wisdom around the world".[4] They published a small literary magazine,The Fugitive (1922–1925), which showcased their works usingnoms de plume at first. Although its publication history was brief,The Fugitive is considered to be one of the most influential journals in the history of American letters.[1]: 13 The Fugitives embodied all the main influences at work in theAmerican Literary Renaissance of the twentieth century.[1]: 14
The group was noted for the number of its members whose works were recognized with a permanent place in the literary canon. Among the most notable Fugitives wereJohn Crowe Ransom,Allen Tate,Merrill Moore,Donald Davidson,William Ridley Wills, andRobert Penn Warren.[5] Other members includeSidney Mttron Hirsch, Stanley P. Johnson, James M. Frank,Jesse Ely Wills,Walter Clyde Curry, Alec B. Stevenson,William Yandell Elliott, and William Frierson.[3] Two of the members (Warren and Tate) later becameUnited States Poets Laureate.[6]
In "The Briar Patch", Robert Penn Warren provided a look at the life of an exploited black person in urban America. "The Briar Patch" was a defense both of segregation, and of the doctrine of "separate but equal," enshrined byPlessy v. Ferguson (1896).[7] (Warren later recanted the views expressed in "The Briar Patch".) Less closely associated with the Fugitives were the criticCleanth Brooks and the poetLaura Riding.
The Fugitives partly overlapped with a later group, also associated with Vanderbilt, called theAgrarians. Some of the Fugitives were part of the latter group. Another group known as theNew Critics, was a later school that emerged from the Fugitives, named for Ransom's 1941 book,The New Criticism.[1]: 11
The first comprehensive collection of the Fugitives' poetry was published by William C. Pratt, Professor of English atMiami University inOxford, Ohio.[1]: 11 Following that, a second anthology was subsequently created after many of the major works were revised. A third anthology,The Fugitive poets : Modern Southern Poetry in Perspective was published in 1991 by Pratt and included additional works by the original poets.[1]: 11
Located inNashville, Tennessee –Founded 1873 | |||||||
| Schools and colleges |
|  | |||||
| People | |||||||
| Athletics |
| ||||||
| Places |
| ||||||
| Publications | |||||||
| Affiliations | |||||||
