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John Crowe Ransom

Robert Penn Warren submission

Robert Penn Warren’s Submission of “John Crowe Ransom: A Study in Irony,” 1935

In 1931, Robert Penn Warren received free books in exchange for penning unsigned reviews for the Virginia Quarterly Review. However, his poems and stories were repeatedly rejected. Finally, he wrote the editor, Stringfellow Barr: “If my prose . . . is decent enough for you to print, my verse is equally, or more, so. Or, is a prose review regarded as merely a space filler in the Quarterly?”

John Crowe Ransom: A Study in Irony

The poetry of John Crowe Ransom is peculiarly systematic. It refers regularly to a center which is precise and has been objectively formulated by the poet himself, although not in relation to his poetry. Items of his poetic performance which appear the most innocent and peripheral are usually, on inspection, to be interpreted in relation to that basic idea of his work.