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The Fugitive Poets: Modern Southern Poetry in Perspective
Anthology of the finest modern Southern poets, including Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Donald Davidson.
207 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 1965
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 12, 2022
Five stars for Robert Penn Warren, the intriguing essay by William Pratt detailing the movement and the marvelous selections from John Crowe Ransom. Two to three stars for everything else. I am not sure why but Allen Tate has never resonated with me.
The essay captures the fledgling spirit of the Fugitive a wee magazine devoted to verse in around Vanderbilt University in Nashville during the 1920s. Pratt situates the movement alongside Ezra Pound’s momentous modernism and naturally finds the merit in both. He goes to great lengths to separate the Fugitives from the Agrarian movement which followed—and included several central figures from the previous iteration. Pratt also compares the aesthetic of the Fugitives with the force of nature which was William Faulkner.
The essay captures the fledgling spirit of the Fugitive a wee magazine devoted to verse in around Vanderbilt University in Nashville during the 1920s. Pratt situates the movement alongside Ezra Pound’s momentous modernism and naturally finds the merit in both. He goes to great lengths to separate the Fugitives from the Agrarian movement which followed—and included several central figures from the previous iteration. Pratt also compares the aesthetic of the Fugitives with the force of nature which was William Faulkner.
February 27, 2023
Does anyone read the Fugitives anymore? I apologize for asking. A more pertinent question might be: Does anyone read poetry anymore?
The Fugitives were a group of poets who came together in the early 1920s, including Allen Tate, John Crown Ransom, Robert Penn Warren. They were modernists, and highly influential in their day. Their guiding aesthetic principles led to the formulation of the so-called New Criticism. (It is important to distinguish the Fugitives from the Agrarians, a group of southern writers (including a few Fugitives) who published an important, though currently discredited, collection of essays in 1930 called "I'll Take My Stand.")
There are many fine poems in this sampling of the Fugitives' best work, including "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter" and "Philomela" by Ransom, and "Ode to the Confederate Dead" by Allen Tate. Ransom was easily as good a poet as Robert Frost. He is a formalist whose works are meticulously crafted.
Ransom, as others in this group, was deeply educated in the classics, and this influence is found in many places throughout his work and those of other Fugitives. He was acutely conscious of poetry's unlikely place among the American people, "A bantering breed sophistical and swarthy." (Philomela). Elsewhere in the same poem he laments the inability of lyric song to find a hospitable home on our side of the Atlantic:
Not to these shores she came! this other Thrace,
Environs barbarous to the royal Attic;
How could her delicate dirge run democratic,
Delivered in a cloudless boundless public place
To an inordinate race?
Ransom apostrophizes (in the very first line of this poem) Procne, Philomela, and Itylus. The mention of all three immediately calls to mind Ovid's famous tale in Book 6 of the Metamorphoses. And in case you miss the connection to the Ovidian version of the story, he names Ovid six lines later.
In that gruesome story, Procne, the daughter of King Pandion of Athens, marries Tereus, a Thracian. Ancient Thrace (today southern Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece, and Turkey on the European side of the Propontis or Sea of Marmara) was considered by the Greeks to be a warlike and uncivilized nation, its people subject to violent passions -- or at least that's how Ovid characterizes it in this story.
After they return from Athens to Thrace, Procne begs her husband to allow her sister Philomela to visit and stay with her. He outfits a ship and sails to Athens (in about two hexameter lines). After greeting his father-in-law, Philomela enters the palace. Tereus is instantaneously overcome with an overpowering desire to possess Philomela sexually. He feasts his eyes upon her and fantasizes wildly about dominating her.
After a tearful farewell, where Pandion entrusts Philomela to the care and protection of his son-in-law, they sail off. After arriving in Thrace, Tereus drags Philomela to a hut in the woods and rapes her. When she protests bitterly, he cuts off her tongue, then goes home to tell Procne that Philomela died en route. Philomela then weaves a tapestry in which she illustrates the savage crime of Tereus, and sends it via a messenger to Procne. When Procne reads it, she goes insane with a desire for revenge. She kills her son Itys and cooks him up to serve as a dinner to her husband. When he asks where Itys is after his meal, Proce says, "he's inside!" (Ovid is never above a little grim humor.) Then Philomela enters, brandishing Itys’s head. At that moment, all three are turned into birds. Philomela, although Ovid does not mention it in his version, has traditionally been understood to have become a nightingale, a bird with long associations of lyric song.
Ransom calls America "this other Thrace." Not a compliment. We are invited by this reference to see another layer of symbolism beyond that of Philomela as the embodiment of lyric poetry. If America is Thrace, it is also the home of the savage Tereus.
The Fugitives were a group of poets who came together in the early 1920s, including Allen Tate, John Crown Ransom, Robert Penn Warren. They were modernists, and highly influential in their day. Their guiding aesthetic principles led to the formulation of the so-called New Criticism. (It is important to distinguish the Fugitives from the Agrarians, a group of southern writers (including a few Fugitives) who published an important, though currently discredited, collection of essays in 1930 called "I'll Take My Stand.")
There are many fine poems in this sampling of the Fugitives' best work, including "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter" and "Philomela" by Ransom, and "Ode to the Confederate Dead" by Allen Tate. Ransom was easily as good a poet as Robert Frost. He is a formalist whose works are meticulously crafted.
Ransom, as others in this group, was deeply educated in the classics, and this influence is found in many places throughout his work and those of other Fugitives. He was acutely conscious of poetry's unlikely place among the American people, "A bantering breed sophistical and swarthy." (Philomela). Elsewhere in the same poem he laments the inability of lyric song to find a hospitable home on our side of the Atlantic:
Not to these shores she came! this other Thrace,
Environs barbarous to the royal Attic;
How could her delicate dirge run democratic,
Delivered in a cloudless boundless public place
To an inordinate race?
Ransom apostrophizes (in the very first line of this poem) Procne, Philomela, and Itylus. The mention of all three immediately calls to mind Ovid's famous tale in Book 6 of the Metamorphoses. And in case you miss the connection to the Ovidian version of the story, he names Ovid six lines later.
In that gruesome story, Procne, the daughter of King Pandion of Athens, marries Tereus, a Thracian. Ancient Thrace (today southern Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece, and Turkey on the European side of the Propontis or Sea of Marmara) was considered by the Greeks to be a warlike and uncivilized nation, its people subject to violent passions -- or at least that's how Ovid characterizes it in this story.
After they return from Athens to Thrace, Procne begs her husband to allow her sister Philomela to visit and stay with her. He outfits a ship and sails to Athens (in about two hexameter lines). After greeting his father-in-law, Philomela enters the palace. Tereus is instantaneously overcome with an overpowering desire to possess Philomela sexually. He feasts his eyes upon her and fantasizes wildly about dominating her.
After a tearful farewell, where Pandion entrusts Philomela to the care and protection of his son-in-law, they sail off. After arriving in Thrace, Tereus drags Philomela to a hut in the woods and rapes her. When she protests bitterly, he cuts off her tongue, then goes home to tell Procne that Philomela died en route. Philomela then weaves a tapestry in which she illustrates the savage crime of Tereus, and sends it via a messenger to Procne. When Procne reads it, she goes insane with a desire for revenge. She kills her son Itys and cooks him up to serve as a dinner to her husband. When he asks where Itys is after his meal, Proce says, "he's inside!" (Ovid is never above a little grim humor.) Then Philomela enters, brandishing Itys’s head. At that moment, all three are turned into birds. Philomela, although Ovid does not mention it in his version, has traditionally been understood to have become a nightingale, a bird with long associations of lyric song.
Ransom calls America "this other Thrace." Not a compliment. We are invited by this reference to see another layer of symbolism beyond that of Philomela as the embodiment of lyric poetry. If America is Thrace, it is also the home of the savage Tereus.
January 6, 2014
The Fugitives were a group of poets, centered around Vanderbilt University in Nashville, who formed an informal school and published a literary magazine called The Fugitive between 1922 and 1925. The rise of the Fugitives can be considered the beginning of modern Southern literature. Williams Pratt's lengthy opening essay is enlightening, identifying the Fugitives' strengths and weaknesses, placing the group historically, and pointing out the classical, modern/conservative orientation of the group.
That being said, I'm not sure how qualified I am to criticize these poems, by John Crowe Ransom, Stanley Johnson, Donald Davidson, Alec Brock Stevenson, Allen Tate, Merrill Moore, Jesse Wills, and Robert Penn Warren. I read them with frustration, bafflement, and increasingly, admiration. Notwithstanding the ironic humor sometimes present in Ransom's work, this is dense poetry, full of difficult language and classical allusions. I found much that rewarded repeated reading, although some of the poems by the "minor" members of the group seemed overblown, and not worth the effort of digging into. That judgement may say more about my feeble brain than about the quality of the writing, though.
Being a Southerner who both loves and is horrified by my part of the United States, I approached Allen Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead" with trepidation, but rest assured that it won't be appearing in any United Daughters of the Confederacy newsletters; it has more to do with the universality of death than with the Lost Cause. And I was quite taken with the longest poem here, Warren's "The Ballad of Billie Potts." It's based on an old folktale, and combines earthiness with rumination about the nature of man.
I'll probably never totally "understand" all of these poems, and the feeling persists that some of them are less than they appear to be. But I expect that I'll enjoy the journey of exploring the best of these poems for years.
That being said, I'm not sure how qualified I am to criticize these poems, by John Crowe Ransom, Stanley Johnson, Donald Davidson, Alec Brock Stevenson, Allen Tate, Merrill Moore, Jesse Wills, and Robert Penn Warren. I read them with frustration, bafflement, and increasingly, admiration. Notwithstanding the ironic humor sometimes present in Ransom's work, this is dense poetry, full of difficult language and classical allusions. I found much that rewarded repeated reading, although some of the poems by the "minor" members of the group seemed overblown, and not worth the effort of digging into. That judgement may say more about my feeble brain than about the quality of the writing, though.
Being a Southerner who both loves and is horrified by my part of the United States, I approached Allen Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead" with trepidation, but rest assured that it won't be appearing in any United Daughters of the Confederacy newsletters; it has more to do with the universality of death than with the Lost Cause. And I was quite taken with the longest poem here, Warren's "The Ballad of Billie Potts." It's based on an old folktale, and combines earthiness with rumination about the nature of man.
I'll probably never totally "understand" all of these poems, and the feeling persists that some of them are less than they appear to be. But I expect that I'll enjoy the journey of exploring the best of these poems for years.
January 19, 2018
If you don't know what is meant by the term "Fugitive Poets," this handy little volume will give you a good strong introductory essay and then a short selection of the poems from the major figures. John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren are the ones really worth reading, but it's nice to get a little bit more from those guys than their normal anthology pieces, and to see them more concretely in their historical context.
March 5, 2012
Read while deployed. Great overview of the Fugitives. I'm already a fan of John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate. A good sampling of the poetry of the Fugitives during their heyday in the mid 1920's. Necrological and Old Mansion are my favorite Ransom poems and both are in this edition. Additionally, it includes Donald Davidson's Lee in the Mountains 1865-1870 and his tribute to Allen Tate: Lines Written for Allen Tate on his Sixtieth Anniversary. The Fugitives were regionally distinctive and pushing against the boundaries of the Old South. Four of the Fugitives were part of the Agrarian movement, which also inlcuded (at least intellectually) the poet Wendell Berry. These are poems to be savored.
January 23, 2019
Some great stuff here, but almost none of it—even the great stuff—clicked with me in any way.
December 8, 2018
This work provides a thorough introduction to and survey of one of the most important but also overlooked poetic schools in 20th century America: the Southern Fugitives.
Dr. William Pratt offers an impressive yet concise introduction in which provides insightful details about the lives of the poets, their history together, and the milieu in which they work was created. Of course the majority of the poems are from the more famous fugitives - Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson, and John Crowe Ransom - but even the individual poems by the likes of Hart Crane and Sidney M. Hirsch are enlightening. The inclusion of Laura Riding is also appreciated, although at times her contributions feel somewhat "other" from the works of her fellow Fugitives.
Pratt has certainly managed to capture the full scope of the Southern Fugitive collective, although at times his editorial assessments, especially as regarded the Fugitive conception of the Old South, can be a little reductive.
I would recommend The Fugitive Poets to any fans of 20th century English poetry, especially those with an interest in the American South.
Dr. William Pratt offers an impressive yet concise introduction in which provides insightful details about the lives of the poets, their history together, and the milieu in which they work was created. Of course the majority of the poems are from the more famous fugitives - Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson, and John Crowe Ransom - but even the individual poems by the likes of Hart Crane and Sidney M. Hirsch are enlightening. The inclusion of Laura Riding is also appreciated, although at times her contributions feel somewhat "other" from the works of her fellow Fugitives.
Pratt has certainly managed to capture the full scope of the Southern Fugitive collective, although at times his editorial assessments, especially as regarded the Fugitive conception of the Old South, can be a little reductive.
I would recommend The Fugitive Poets to any fans of 20th century English poetry, especially those with an interest in the American South.
July 28, 2025
3.5 stars
A great selection of poems of the early modern South, with a variety of voices, styles, and themes to explore. I found myself enjoying Donald Davidson's, Merrill Moore's, and Allen Tate's works the most, but my favorite was certainly Laura Riding's "Dimensions." Without much personal knowledge or depth in Southern poetry, my words cannot express much except that I enjoyed this collection very well. Struggles and stories as timeless as the earth were given great expression in this book and I certainly hope to recall some of them further along the line.
In addition, I found Pratt's introduction very helpful in learning about the history and personality of The Fugitives as a poetic and cultural movement. It gives helpful context for some of the poems written and gives one a preview of the themes and ideas to keep an eye out for while reading.
A great selection of poems of the early modern South, with a variety of voices, styles, and themes to explore. I found myself enjoying Donald Davidson's, Merrill Moore's, and Allen Tate's works the most, but my favorite was certainly Laura Riding's "Dimensions." Without much personal knowledge or depth in Southern poetry, my words cannot express much except that I enjoyed this collection very well. Struggles and stories as timeless as the earth were given great expression in this book and I certainly hope to recall some of them further along the line.
In addition, I found Pratt's introduction very helpful in learning about the history and personality of The Fugitives as a poetic and cultural movement. It gives helpful context for some of the poems written and gives one a preview of the themes and ideas to keep an eye out for while reading.
December 15, 2023
I was excited to read this book, and although there were a few good things, there wasn't enough to make me keep the book. I put it in one of the Tiny Library stands in our neighborhood so I hope someone else will appreciate it more than I did.
September 5, 2025
Allen Tate amazing. Great Robert Penn Warren selections. John Crowe Ransom picks are good too. Lotsssss of sort of middling stuff that highlights the silliness of the whole Fugitive poets and their puffed chests and air of poetic superiority, but interesting nonetheless.
its nice stuff.
its nice stuff.
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March 15, 2012I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews