T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

INTERVIEWEE NAME: Cleanth Brooks [1906-1994] # 4700.0142

IDENTIFICATION: Former LSU English Professor and Co-founder of

The Southern Review

INTERVIEWER: Pamela Dean

PROJECT: LSU History

DATE: June 21, 1992 FOCUS DATES: 1930-1950

ABSTRACT:

Tape 199

Family background; grammar school in rural Tennessee; football as an equalizing aspect of school life; his education at Vanderbilt and his introduction to literature; Robert Penn Warren, friend and advisor; Rhodes Scholarship and studying at Oxford; Charles Pipkin, Chairman of the Rhodes Committee of Louisiana and Dean of LSU Graduate School; obtaining a position at LSU, 1932; initial impressions of Baton Rouge; LSU English department in the 1930s;

Brooks and Warren on critiquing texts [New Criticism]; books they collaborated on; demise of The Southern Review; its predecessor, The Southwestern Review; early obstacles for The Southern Review; day-to-day routine running the magazine; being criticized for including their own works.

Tape 200

University politics; President James Monroe Smith scandal and reforms; searching for a replacement for William A. Read, chairman of the English department; Thomas Kirby's selection and his ability; Katherine Anne Porter; Eudora Welty.

TAPES: T 199 & 200 TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 2 hr.

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 81

RESTRICTIONS: None