Source: An introduction to The Republic of Letters in America: The Correspondence of John Peale Bishop and Allen Tate, edited by Thomas Daniel Young and John J. Hindle, The University Press of Kentucky, 1981, pp. 1-10.

In the following excerpt from the introduction to The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence of John Peale Bishop & Allen Tate, Young and Hingle discuss the friendship of Tate and Bishop, and their critical contributions to each other's writings.

Few writers of the twentieth century have been so profoundly dedicated to the vocation of letters as was Allen Tate. A young English poet publishing his first poem in an obscure little magazine received from Tate a few days after the poem appeared a letter of commendation and detailed comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the poem. Moved that an established man of letters would devote so much attention to the work of a...