Newton Arvin
Newton Arvin was an influential American biographer, literary critic, and educator, born on August 23, 1900, in Valparaiso, Indiana. Raised in a challenging environment marked by his father's frequent absences and his own literary inclinations, Arvin pursued an academic career primarily at Smith College, where he became a respected professor. He graduated from Harvard University in 1921 and described his political views as Marxist. Throughout his career, Arvin made notable contributions to literature through his biographies of significant American writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. His biography of Melville, which received the National Book Award in 1951, is particularly celebrated for its psychological depth and exploration of homoerotic themes. Arvin’s work was characterized by a commitment to making literary scholarship accessible and relevant, and he often contextualized his subjects within their societal frameworks. His life was marked by personal struggles, including the challenges of being a gay man in a less accepting era, which profoundly influenced his writing. Arvin's legacy lies in his ability to engage with the complexities of authors' lives, making him a pivotal figure in the evolution of contemporary biography.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Newton Arvin
Writer
- Born: August 23, 1900
- Birthplace: Valparaiso, Indiana
- Died: March 21, 1963
- Place of death: Valparaiso, Indiana
Biography
Newton Arvin was born on August 23, 1900, in Valparasio, Indiana, the son of businessman Frederic Newton Arvin and Jesse Hawkins Arvin. Arvin later wrote that his Indiana childhood had been painful. His father was often away from home, and Arvin often felt alienated from his milieu because of his “bookworm” habits. Arvin married Mary J. Garrison in 1932, but the couple divorced in 1940. Arvin graduated from Harvard University in 1921 with a B.A. He described his politics as Marxist. Arvin spent most of his academic career at Smith College, rising from assistant professor to professor between 1929 and 1960. A shy but intense teacher, he made a significant impact on his students. In 1925 and 1926, Arvin co-edited Living Age magazine, and from 1939 to 1951, he served as a director at Yaddo, a writers’ colony.
A journalist and literary critic, Arvin was best known for his biographies of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1929), Walt Whitman (1938), Herman Melville (1950), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1963). In Arvin’s hands, academic scholarship was transformed into lucid, perceptive narrative. He was especially adept at situating his subjects into the context of their age, while at the same time focusing contemporary readers on the relevance of writers in the greater scheme of culture. Arvin’s masterpiece is generally considered to be his psychologically perceptive account of Herman Melville, a biography that won the National Book Award in 1951.
The 1930’s radicalized Arvin, prompting him to combine in his later biographies an interest in psychoanalysis and Marxism. He gravitated toward writers deeply engaged with shaping and changing society. Yaddo became a refuge for a writer tortured by his homosexuality in a time when it was not possible to live openly as a gay man, and attempted suicide three times. His biography of Melville is probably most closely connected to the sexual tensions Arvin felt, for Melville’s own homoerotic tendencies are sensitively explored. Arvin’s biography of Longfellow is his most heroic and iconoclastic book, since he argues that the poet is not out of date, and that his lyric acceptance of life ought not to be devalued because of the modern concern with irony and skepticism. Arvin’s life and career has received unusual attention from biographers and critics not only because of his elegant style but also his willingness to confront the social, psychological, and sexual implications of writers and their lives in ways that have influenced the theory and practice of contemporary biography.