Lionel Trilling
| Lionel Trilling | |
|---|---|
Lionel Trilling
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| Born |
Lionel Mordechai Trilling July 4, 1905 New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | November 5, 1975 (aged 70) New York City, New York, United States |
| Cause of death | Abdominal cancer |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Occupation | Literary critic, professor |
| Years active | 1931–1975 |
| Employer | Columbia University |
| Known for | Literary criticism |
| Notable work | The Liberal Imagination (1950) |
| Spouse(s) | Diana Trilling (1929–1975; his death) |
| Children | James Trilling |
| Website | Official website |
Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the twentieth century who traced the contemporary cultural, social, and political implications of literature. With his wife Diana Trilling (née Rubin), whom he married in 1929, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review.
Lionel Trilling was born in Queens, New York, the son of Fannie (née Cohen), who was from London, and David Trilling, a tailor from Bialystok in Poland. His family was Jewish. In 1921, he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, and, at age sixteen, entered Columbia University, thus beginning a lifelong association with the university. He joined the Boar's Head Society and wrote for the Morningside literary journal. In 1925, he graduated from Columbia College, and, in 1926, earned a Master of Arts degree at the university. (His master's essay was entitledTheodore Edward Hook: his life and work) He then taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and at Hunter College.
In 1929 he married Diana Rubin, and the two began a lifelong literary partnership. In 1932 he returned to Columbia to pursue his doctoral degree in English literature and to teach literature. He earned his doctorate in 1938 with a dissertation about Matthew Arnold that he later published. He was promoted to assistant professor the following year, becoming Columbia's first tenured Jewish professor in its English department. He was promoted to full professor in 1948.
Lionel Trilling became the George Edward Woodberry Professor of Literature and Criticism in 1965. He was a popular instructor and for thirty years taught Columbia's Colloquium on Important Books, a course about the relationship between literature and cultural history, with Jacques Barzun. His students included Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Steven Marcus, John Hollander, Richard Howard, Cynthia Ozick, Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, George Stade, David Lehman, Leon Wieseltier, Louis Menand, Robert Leonard Moore and Norman Podhoretz.
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