(University of North Georgia Press, 2017)
This book is a rediscovery: John William Corrington is a fascinating figure in Southern letters, popular culture, and philosophical conservatism. Allen Mendenhall has done yeoman’s service in bringing these essays back to light.— Daniel McCarthy, Editor at Large, The American Conservative
This volume contains twenty short works by John William Corrington, each helpfully prefaced by a brief note by Allen Mendenhall providing both context for the piece and rationale for its inclusion. This selection of critical and philosophical writings perhaps offers a perfect introduction to Corrington’s entire corpus of work. It contains none of Corrington’s fiction, but does contain his critical reflections on the process of writing and his rebuke of those critics who characterized his fiction as “realistic”; it contains none of his poetry, but contains his “A Poet’s Credo.” The collection does contain a generous helping of Corrington’s philosophical writing, much of it revolving around the thought of Eric Voegelin, and important essays on the decline and possible recovery of education in America. His reflections on education capture Corrington at his most prophetic. Speaking in 1969, he maintained that “American society within the next fifty years must either have the college and university at its very center, or there may not be any society.” The publication of this collection now is a timely reminder of Corrington’s cultural and philosophical concerns as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of this prediction.— Steven D. Ealy, Senior Fellow, Liberty Fund
Allen Mendenhall’s tribute to John William Corrington is the next best thing to Resurrection this side of eternity.— Richard Bishirjian, Founding President of Yorktown University and Author of The Conservative Rebellion
Editor Allen Mendenhall correctly characterizes [John William Corrington] as a “latter-day Southern Fugitive” in the tradition of the authors of I’ll Take My Stand. Like John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate and Donald Davidson, Corrington, though, is not easily characterized. His peripatetic life mirrors those of the Agrarians, but even more so those of second generation followers like Richard Weaver and Mel Bradford. Like the Agrarians, he began as a poet, but moved to fiction and literary criticism before, redolent of William Faulkner, venturing into screenwriting. Like Weaver, he was an anti-modernist who viewed the South as embodying a mytho-poetic counterweight to modernity. Like Bradford, Corrington, a partisan of Eric Voegelin and critic of Abraham Lincoln, was a gadfly within the emergent post-World War Two conservative intellectual movement. The Southern Philosopher is a collection of Corrington’s previously unpublished essays on literature, intellectual history and gnosticism. … Corrington is a forgotten pivotal figure in the history of American conservatism and especially to second generation Agrarian traditionalism. Furthermore, his critique of modernity, in and of itself, adds considerably to the history of conservative thought in the West. For these reasons and more, The Southern Philosopher is a welcome addition to the history of American letters.— Jay Langdale, Troy University
Allen Mendenhall has undertaken a quixotic task, which is to place the late John William Corrington at the vanguard of “Southern Conservatism.” … It’s fallen to Mendenhall … to immanentize the Corrington eschaton. … [Corrington] deserves more sustained attention and it’s to Mendenhall’s credit to begin this process of discovery.— Daniel James Sundahl, Emeritus Professor of English and American Studies, Hillsdale College
Reviewed here in The University Bookman (PDF here), here in Southern Literary Review (see PDF here), and here in Anamnesis (see PDF here); interviewed about the book here by the University of North Georgia Press (see PDF here).
