December 20, 1941

Dear Allen,

I was delighted to have your letter. The Yeats
piece is fine--really very good; and we are mighty glad
that it's in and in type. I had heard that you were
terribly busy; it was good of you to make an extra effort
to get it written. The number will be in the mails in
another week.

This Spring number will be our last: we are accounting
in the Winter number our probable suspension with Vol. VII,
no. 4. I should have written you about this earlier except
for two reasons: (1) the end came rather suddenly. There
had been rumors for several weeks, but we have faced such
rumors off and on for years. The final decision came
only today. (2) Since favorable comment on the Southern
Review has been attributed to Red and me--"inspired by
us"--we have wanted to lean over backwards in keeping
completely quiet about our shaky situation. Particularly,
is this true in view of the comments which may appear:
L.S.U. is apparently considered licensed game for the
ironic commentator, anyway. What they could make of the
suspension of the Review could be pretty nasty. Of course,
the war may divert attention completely--or maybe there
wouldn't have been no comments anyway. But at any rate,
Red and I want to be in the position of having done nothing
to solicit protests or comment of any kind.

If some such sarcastic comment should appear, I
want to be able to say quite honestly that I have had
absolutely nothing to do with "inspiring" it. Hence our
complete silence to you and to all our other friends.
But we talked over the matter with the president, General
Hodges, today, and have decided to make a formal announce-
ment at once: it will appear in the Yeats number.

By the way, it is only fair to say that the General
has been very fair and very sympathetic. I think that he
honestly regrets the loss of the Southern Review. Of that
both of us are thoroughly convinced; but he has been in
the University only six months and you can scarcely blame

2

him if he feels that he has to take the advice of his
committee. He has dealt very fairly and straight-for-
wardly with Red and me, and this has constituted another
reason for our saying nothing about the suspension until
we had talked over the matter of the announcement with
him.

In a way, the loss of the magazine will be a relief.
Red and I ought to get some books finished now.

Love to Caroline and Nancy
from both of us.

As ever,

P.S. I wish I could get to Indianapolis but I can't, nor
can Red. I'll send your copy of the Yeats number to
Indianapolis.

December 20, 1941

Dear Allen,

I was about to forget your proposal
for the next number--a matter entirely too
important to forget. Red and I are
heartily in agreement. We'll count on you
for the symposium and we will get on the
job immediately to get commitments for it
from the others. I am glad that you
liked our editorial--it was a collaborative
effort: Red, Palmer, and myself.

Incidentally, we are planning a long
editorial on the subject of Van Wyck
Brooks, Macleish, and company for the
next number: this will be our contribution
to the attack, and our way of signing off.
Merry Christmas to all of you.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON NEW JERSEY

Creative Arts Program

March 2, 1942

Dear Red:

Not until yesterday evening, when I returned from N. Y. and found a letter from Philip Davidson, was it possible for me to let you and Cleanth know the situation in Georgia. The magazine is not going through. Money, of course; and beyond that I don't know much. I do know that they were trying to get twelve thousand a year for two years, and that they were looking to the Carnegie Corporation for about half of it. They may have struck a snap there in connection with me. The gossip now is that the Carnegie Corp. sees no reason for supporting Tate indefinitely (They pay my salary here); but I don't credit this much.

So the last hope has gone, since I heard that John won't be able to hold out much longer. He wrote Dick Blackmur the other day that he couldn't publish a summer issue.

As to your lecture, I suspect that Wyatt's translations might be a little remote from the purpose of the series. You see, the lectures are provided chiefly for the Creative Arts Program, for my group in fact; and the emphasis has been on poetry from the point of view of the practicing poet. I hope the poetic language-as-related-to-structure has grown in your mind. But in the long run we want what you feel best able to do at this time.

I don't like to see you go to Minnesota, but you will have to be somewhere, and I hear it's a good place. We simply do not know what to do. But I'll tell you my woes when you come up.

Did I tell you the procedure for your lecture? To be safe I'll risk doing it again. Lecture at 5 on Thursday, May 7th; must not go over one hour. The next day at 2:30 you stand up before the Creative Arts group and answer questions.

I was talking to Lambert Davis the other day. I hope you change to Harcourt. The more I learn about H&M the less I like them.

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