Literary Birthday – 10 September – Carl Van Doren
Carl Van Doren was born on 10 September 1885 and died on 18 July 1950.
Carl Van Doren Quotes
- Yes, it’s hard to write, but it’s harder not to.
- The measure of the creator is the amount of life he puts into his work.
- The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted . . . . Some have settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have passed over from literature into speech.
- A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
- The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.
- The two most common charges against the older fiction, that it pleased wickedly and that it taught nothing, had broken down before the discovery, except in illiberal sects, that the novel is fitted both for honest use and for pleasure.
Carl Van Doren was an American critic, writer, and teacher. He wrote about literature and history, as well as novels, biographies, and literary criticism. Van Doren won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Benjamin Franklin. He studied at Columbia University and later taught there until 1930. During this time, he was part of a group of academics who helped establish American literature and history as important parts of university programmes. He wrote The American Novel, which offers a comprehensive critical examination of the evolution of long-form fiction in the United States from its early 18th-century roots through the landmark achievements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1942, Van Doren was elected to the American Philosophical Society. His work helped shape the study and teaching of American literature.
Source: Louis Edward Nollau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carl-Van-Doren.jpg
by Amanda Patterson
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