Robert Warshow
{{Short description|American author and critic (1917–1955)}}
Robert Samuel Warshow{{cite book |last1=University of Michigan Board of Regents |title=Proceedings of the Board of Regents |date=1936 |publisher=The University |page=288 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4l_iAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA288 |language=en}} (1917–1955) was an American author associated with the New York Intellectuals.{{cite news |last=Shulevitz |first=Judith |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/30/books/the-close-reader-the-moviegoer.html |title=THE CLOSE READER; The Moviegoer |work=The New York Times |date=December 30, 2001 |accessdate=October 27, 2020}} He is best known for his criticism of film and popular culture for Commentary and The Partisan Review.
Life
Born in New York City and raised in its Bronx borough, Warshow graduated from the University of Michigan in 1938.{{cite news |last=Belasco |first=Daniel |url= https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-man-in-the-audience/ |title=The Man In The Audience |work=The Times of Israel |date=February 15, 2002 |accessdate=October 27, 2020}}{{cite book |last1=University of Michigan |title=General Register |date=1938 |publisher=UM Libraries |page=466 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SdDhAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA8-PA466 |language=en}} He briefly wrote for The New Leader before being stationed in Washington, D.C. as a member of the Army Signal Corps during World War II.{{cite book |last=Bloom |first=Alexander |title=Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World |publisher=Oxford University Press p. 135 |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-1953-4540-7}} He was managing editor of Commentary from 1946 until his death.{{cite book |last1=Grinberg |first1=Ronnie |title=Write like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals |date=26 March 2024 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-25562-0 |page=37 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jv_ZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37 |language=en}}
Warshow died of a heart attack at the age of 37.
Works
Among the articles published in Warshow's lifetime were "The Westerner" and "The Gangster as Tragic Hero", analyses of the Western movie and the gangster movie genre from a cultural standpoint. The opening sentence of "The Westerner" reads "The two most successful creations of American movies are the gangster and the Westerner: men with guns."{{cite book |last1=Talbot |first1=Daniel |title=Film: an Anthology |date=1975 |publisher=University of California Press |page=148 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q45hYCIaK-4C&pg=PA148 |language=en}}
Warshow also penned essays praising playwright Clifford Odets as well as George Herriman's newspaper comic strip Krazy Kat. "The 'Idealism' of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg" showed the executed American Stalinists in a brutally honest light. In a critique of The Crucible Warshow argued that Arthur Miller was not as competent a dramatist as was perceived. After Fredric Wertham and Gershon Legman, Warshow was the first serious critic to write about EC Comics and its Mad magazine, albeit from a measured and equivocal perspective.{{cite news |last=Murray |first=Noel |url= https://www.avclub.com/robert-warshow-the-immediate-experience-movies-comic-1798197447 |title=Robert Warshow: The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre And Other Aspects Of Popular Culture |work=The A.V. Club |date=April 29, 2002 |access-date=October 27, 2020}}
Most of his published work was collected in the book The Immediate Experience in 1962. An expanded edition was released by Harvard University Press in 2001.
See also
Books
- Robert Warshow: Immediate Experience. Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture, Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1962. 282 pp. With a contribution by Lionel Trilling.
- Robert Warshow: The Immediate Experience. Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2001. 302 pp. Expanded reprint, including Lionel Trilling, new contributions from David Denby and Stanley Cavell.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100211184906/http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/-em-the-study-of-man-em--paul--the-horror-comics--and-dr--wertham-1958 The Study of Man: Paul, the Horror Comics, and Dr. Wertham. In: Commentary Magazine, June 1954.]
{{New York Intellectuals}}
{{Authority control}}
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Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:20th-century American journalists
Category:American film critics
Category:American literary critics
Category:American male journalists
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Category:Jewish American non-fiction writers
Category:University of Michigan alumni
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:Journalists from New York City
Category:United States Army personnel of World War II
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