Philip Rahv

Philip Rahv

Philip Rahv (March 10, 1908 – December 22, 1973) was an American literary critic and essayist.

Life

He was born in Kupin, Ukraine, to a Jewish family under the name Ivan Greenberg. He made his way to the United States by way of Palestine and worked as a teacher of Hebrew.

He joined the American Communist Party in 1932. He is noted for his role in founding "Partisan Review" with William Phillips in 1933. The journal broke with the Soviet line in 1937 in the wake of the Moscow Trials and maintained an ongoing feud with Stalinist Popular Front advocates such as Granville Hicks of "New Masses." As an independent publication, "Partisan Review" went on to become the most influential literary journal of the period.

Phillip Rahv was a beacon of the New York intellegensia. When the narrator of Robert Lowell's poem, "Man and Wife" meets his future wife he says he, "outdrank the Rahvs in the heat/of Greenwich Village, fainting at your feet." Phillip Rahv's work at "Partisan Review" put Rahv at the center of an intellectual circle that included Dwight Macdonald, Lionel Trilling, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Alfred Kazin, Delmore Schwartz, Sidney Hook, and many other prominent intellectuals of the period. Rahv remained a Marxist and was committed to the idea of achieving a synthesis of radical social criticism and literary excellence.

He is also known for his later hostility toward myth-criticism, in the style of Northrop Frye. As he put it, "what the craze for myth represents most of all is the fear of history."

Rahv taught at Brandeis University in his later years and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1973 in what appeared to be suicide.

Works

*Image and Idea (1949) essays
*The Myth and the Powerhouse (1965) essays
*'Literature and the Sixth Sense (1969) essays

ee also

*New York Intellectuals
*Anti-Stalinist left

Bibliography

*Bloom, Alexander. "Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals & Their World", Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 978-0-19-505177-3

External links

* [http://www.brandeis.edu/publications/review/50threview/klingen.pdf Article on Rahv and Irving Howe]


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  • RAHV, PHILIP — (1908–1973), U.S. editor and critic. Born in Russia and named Ivan Greenberg, Rahv (literally, teacher) came to the United States after living in Palestine. One of the founders of the Partisan Review, Rahv helped to turn the magazine into an anti …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Rahv — /rahv/, n. Philip, 1908 73, U.S. literary critic, born in Russia. * * * …   Universalium

  • Rahv — /rahv/, n. Philip, 1908 73, U.S. literary critic, born in Russia …   Useful english dictionary

  • Rahv, Philip — ▪ American critic born March 10, 1908, Kupin, Ukraine, Russian Empire died Dec. 22, 1973, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.       Ukrainian born American critic who was cofounder (1933) with William Phillips of The Partisan Review, a journal of literature… …   Universalium

  • Rahv — [[t]rɑv[/t]] n. big Philip, 1908–73, U.S. literary critic, born in Russia …   From formal English to slang

  • Rahv, Philip (Greenberg, Ivan) — (1908 73)    Literary critic. Born in Galicia, he went to the US at the age of 14. In 1932 he joined the communist party. He was a co founder of Partisan Review. In 1957 he began teaching at Brandeis University …   Dictionary of Jewish Biography

  • UNITED STATES LITERATURE — The Influence of the Bible and Hebrew Culture The Jewish influence on American literary expression predated the actual arrival of Jews in the United States in 1654, for the Puritan culture of New England was marked from the outset by a deep… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • William Phillips (editor) — William Phillips (November 14, 1907 – September 13, 2002) was an American editor, writer, and public intellectual, who co founded the Partisan Review. Together with co editor Philip Rahv, Phillips made the Partisan Review into one of the foremost …   Wikipedia

  • American literature — Introduction       the body of written works produced in the English language in the United States.       Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the history of the country that produced it. For almost a century and a… …   Universalium

  • PHILLIPS, WILLIAM — (1907–2002), U.S. editor and writer. Born in New York, Phillips attended City College and earned a master s degree at New York University (1930). He completed some graduate work at Columbia while an instructor in English at NYU. Phillips is best… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

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