HYNES, Samuel 1924-

(Samuel Lynn Hynes)

PERSONAL: Born August 29, 1924, in Chicago, IL; son of Samuel Lynn and Margaret (Turner) Hynes; married Elizabeth Igleheart, July 28, 1944; children: Miranda, Joanna. Education: University of Minnesota, B.A., 1947; Columbia University, M.A., 1948, Ph.D., 1956.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of English, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. E-mail—shynes@princeton.edu.

CAREER: Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, 1949–68, began as instructor, became professor of English literature, 1965–68; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, professor of English, 1968–76; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, professor of English, 1976–77, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature, 1978–90, professor emeritus, 1990–. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, active duty, 1943–46 and 1952–53; became major; received Air Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross.

MEMBER: Royal Society of Literature (fellow), English Institute, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright fellow, 1953–54; Guggenheim fellow, 1959–60, 1981–82; Explicator Award, Explicator Literary Foundation, 1962, for The Pattern of Hardy's Poetry; Bollingen Foundation fellow, 1964–65; American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 1969, 1985–86; National Endowment for the Humanities senior fellow, 1973–74, 1977–78; Robert F. Kennedy Award, for The Soldiers' Tale.

WRITINGS:

The Pattern of Hardy's Poetry, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1961.

William Golding, Columbia University Press (Columbia, SC), 1964.

The Edwardian Turn of Mind, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1968.

Edwardian Occasions: Essays on English Writing in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1972.

The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930's, Bodley Head (London, England), 1976, Viking (New York, NY), 1977.

(Author of introduction) Rebecca West, a Celebration: A Selection of Her Writings Chosen by Her Publisher and Rebecca West, Viking (New York, NY), 1977.

Thomas Hardy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1984.

Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator (memoir), Frederic Beil/Naval Institute Press (New York, NY), 1988.

A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, Atheneum/Maxwell Macmillan International (New York, NY), 1991.

The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War, A. Lane (New York, NY), 1997.

The Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood before the War, Viking (New York, NY), 2003.

EDITOR

Further Speculations by T.E. Hulme, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis, MN), 1955.

English Literary Criticism: Restoration and Eighteenth Century, Appleton (New York, NY), 1963.

(With Daniel G. Hoffman) English Literary Criticism: Romantic and Victorian, Appleton, 1963.

Great Short Works of Thomas Hardy, Harper (New York, NY), 1967.

Arnold Bennett, The Author's Craft and Other Critical Writings of Arnold Bennett, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1968.

Christopher Caudwell, Romance and Realism: A Study in English Bourgeois Literature by Christopher Caudwell, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1970.

(And author of introduction) Twentieth-Century Interpretations of 1984: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall (Tappan, NJ), 1971.

Graham Greene: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall (Tappan, NJ), 1973.

Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), Volume 1, 1982, Volume 2, 1984, Volume 3, 1985.

(And author of introduction) The Complete Short Fiction of Joseph Conrad, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(And author of introduction and notes) Thomas Hardy, Selected Poetry, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(And author of introduction and glossary) e. e. cummings, The Enormous Room, Penguin (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: A long-time scholar of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature, Samuel Hynes attempts "to describe, by drawing upon a wide variety of firsthand sources, the cultural temper of the [Edwardian] age," according to Steven Marcus in his Atlantic review of The Edwardian Turn of Mind. Covering the period from about 1895 to 1914, Hynes's study "is not concerned with the Edwardian mental temper as a whole, but with, as he puts it, the examples and individuals that have interested him most," related Saturday Review contributor Marghanita Laski, "although, as it develops, these are some aspects of the Edwardian intellectual climate which were, in today's light, most seminally influential." The result, as Michael Holroyd termed it in the New York Times Book Review, is "a study of Edwardianism that retains much of the glow of real life. [Hynes] has done this by refusing, so far as possible, to simplify the issues. Throughout his book, he preserves an excellent balance between sentiment and shrewd common sense." Although Hynes examines specific works of literature, his book "is largely literary biography," the critic explained. "He approaches reality, therefore, not through statistics, but through the individual. His method of recapturing the intellectual climate of the times is to explore those areas of Edwardian conflict that seem to him most crucial—'politics, science, the arts, the relations between men and women.'"

Laski, however, while finding The Edwardian Turn of Mind "a delightful book to read, often witty in its turn of phrase," faulted the author for "concentrat[ing] on popular and partial responses at the expense of the full picture…. So long as we have done our background homework we can fairly give ourselves up to enjoyment of Professor Hynes's merry-melancholy interpretations." Gertrude Himmelfarb similarly criticized the author for the lack of a "systematic attempt to explain" the movements of the age; "the job of finding out what did happen is all the more challenging if [Hynes] does not presume to know what should have happened," the critic commented in the New Republic. But Holroyd observed that Hynes's work "is not intended as a definitive work of reference," and added that while "there will be many more studies of the age … few of them are likely to be so well-constructed as [his]." "'The Edwardian Turn of Mind' is entirely satisfactory in almost every respect," concluded William E. Buckler in the Virginia Quarterly Review. "Professor Hynes treats with urbanity and genuine illumination a very diverse list of topics … [with a] style [that] is always clear and usually graceful."

"There is no more accomplished literary historian, writer and 'researcher' than Samuel Hynes," William H. Pritchard claimed in his New Republic review of The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930's, "and his year-by-year tour through the 1930's in England is full of good things." "Hynes's excellent book," related Newsweek writer Walter Clemons, "traces the commitment of [W.H.] Auden and his close contemporaries during the '30s to the idea that poetry could be an agent in history and might even change its course." In The Auden Generation, "Hynes, a careful, meticulous scholar, patiently sorts through the novels, poems, reviews, periodicals, and literary fads of the period," John R. Boly stated in the National Review. "The result is a masterly account of the contradictions surrounding the generation whose creativity had to contend with the tragic circus of the Thirties." Including such writers as Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, and C. Day Lewis, the "Auden generation" consisted of several authors and critics who had similar theories and politics, and who "grew up together, read the same books, and put one another in their own [works]," as Washington Post Book World contributor John Breslin described them. Hynes "documents the intellectual incest," the reviewer continued, "but he is too good a literary critic and historian to reduce the achievement of this extraordinary group to these compulsive cross-references."

Other critics, however, have believed that Hynes does not provide enough background information on his subjects; Ronald Berman, for instance, remarked in Commentary that The Auden Generation "is about political writing, but it does not have an adequate sense of intellectual history. Its characters seem to respond instantaneously to [world] events." New York Times Book Review contributor Diana Trilling likewise asserted that Hynes "supplies a pitifully meager background to the political ardor even of his gifted few." While deeming Hynes's work "enviably lucid and judicious," Karl Miller wrote in the New York Review of Books that the author "is rather sparing in his attention to biography, pushing on with his chronological critical accounts." "The Auden Generation is nonetheless a superb account of the writer's dilemma in times of crisis," maintained Boly, countering criticisms of incompleteness by noting that Hynes "has the highly defensible bias of a literary historian. As a portrait of its age," he declares, "The Auden Generation is a clear, thorough, and important book that merits serious attention."

New York Times reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt also had praise for Hynes's study, which he asserted is written "with exemplary grace and clarity…. His book is a useful blueprint to a literary culture that, whether we know it or not, continues to inform our own even on the most vulgar level." The critic elaborated: "What is most arresting about 'The Auden Generation' is the degree to which it speaks to our own most recent period of political ferment, the 1960's…. And that is finally what makes Professor Hynes's study most valuable: It teaches us more about our times than our times have taught us about themselves." Breslin likewise suggested that the author's "discussion of the tension between art and politics casts light on our own recent past as well as on England's troubled decade." "Hynes, in The Auden Generation, his extremely lucid, readable and intelligent study of the literary history in England of the Thirties, greatly enlarges the reader's view of the generation," Auden contemporary Stephen Spender attested in the New Statesman. "Hynes makes clearer than anyone before has done the most puzzling aspect of Auden's career, his retraction of some of the best poems of his youth," commented Clemons. "Still better, the straightforward year-by-year placement of poems and novels in historical context produces striking juxtapositions." Although the survey may be selective to the point of exclusivity, the critic concluded, Hynes's work "is opinionated literary history of the most desirable kind."

Hynes departs from his literary studies to present a memoir of his years as a marine pilot during World War II in Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator. Hynes's work differs from the numerous wartime accounts of military brass and heroes, Washington Post Book World contributor James Salter reported, "Trailing along modestly, some years after [other war stories,] Flights of Passage,… draws its considerable strength not from the scale of events but from its truth and clarity…. It convinces one that it is an authentic fragment, poignant and real, of a great and tumultuous past." "Touching, bawdy, at times very funny," Diane Ackerman remarked in the New York Times Book Review, Flights of Passage is "about coming of age as a Marine aviator during World War II. Looking at old photographs of himself and his squadronmates, Mr. Hynes tries to remember how it felt, on the pulse, to be young in that era." The author succeeds in re-creating a young man's experience of the war; as Time critic Paul Gray observed, a "paradox shimmers throughout Flights of Passage: the war makes men out of Hynes and his comrades but also allows them to remain boys, irresponsible, as free as the birds when they climb into their cockpits."

In order to create an accurate portrait of the time, "Hynes tells the story from the point of view of the young man, with very little distancing," Ackerman noted. "In each of his units, soldiers fuse into a family, and he remembers their mannerisms and habits in vivid detail," with the "brief, quirky sketches" of his roguish comrades making "this book at times a cross between [James Michener's] 'Tales of the South Pacific' and [Joseph Heller's] 'Catch-22.'" While Hynes "makes good on his promise to tell his story as he remembers it," stated Gray, nevertheless "his prose betrays a mature intelligence. It is deceptively simple and consistently enchanting." Salter, who also compared Flights of Passage to Michener's work, elaborated: "Although his story is told as much through the eyes of youth as possible, there is a certain maturity about it. The vision has not changed," the critic explained, "but the ability to describe that vision is greater and more assured."

While much of Hynes's account concerns his aviator's training and the escapades of his fellow airmen, it also recounts the squadron in combat at Okinawa; "It is this final third of the book," wrote Salter, "with its unexpected incidents, candid observation, and almost saintly dispassion which grips the reader in an embrace that leaves its mark. The detail is exact, imperishable." National Review contributor Jeffrey Hart similarly observed that Hynes's "memoir of his experiences as a Marine pilot in the Pacific is extraordinarily moving…. His prose catches the exact mood of World War II," the critic added, "this book is so good I was sorry to finish it." "In part, one's pleasure is derived from its use of language," commented Christopher Thorne in the Times Literary Supplement; "in part, from the sensitivity of its observation." With events "beautifully captured in these pages," the critic concluded that "quite simply, [Flights of Passage] is a joy to read."

Hynes continued to write about his life in The Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood before the War. Though many authors of Hynes's generation have reminisced about the halcyon days before World War II when life seemed simpler and less troubled by social ills, many critics have praised this author's portrayal as one of the best. Growing up in Minnesota during the depression, life could be hard, but Hynes recalls the many positive aspects of the time, too, detailing such pleasures as a winter's day in the snow, or of listening to serials on the radio. "It is nothing really extraordinary, nothing uncommon," observed a Kirkus Reviews contributor; "it's just a story told with uncommon narrative skill." A Publishers Weekly critic similarly noted that, "like a stunningly precise diary, Hynes dwells on nothing, nor does he artificially heighten events…. What Hynes achieves with journalistic eloquence is showing a way of life."

War profoundly shaped the lives of those in Hynes's generation, and so the recorded thoughts of those who lived through war has become an increasing subject of interest for the author. As with his earlier autobiography about the war years, Hynes draws on personal accounts to comment on the changing views of war in his The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War. Discussing diaries and other written records by soldiers who fought in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War, Hynes uses his background in literature to comment on how firsthand accounts serve to demythologize wars and help us to understand their history better. Calling the book "a strikingly original combination of history, literary analysis, and autobiographical reflection," Robert Wohl attested in his Journal of Modern History review that the author is "at his best when he begins to distinguish between different wars and different types of war experiences within those wars, differences hidden by the myths that shape our collective memory of what this or that war was like." One criticism that Wohl and some other reviewers have had, though, is that the narratives Hynes draws from are largely by white males because they are the ones who did much of the fighting. However, this results in the exclusion of other perspectives, such as women, who can offer much insight into the war years. As Nation contributor Barbara Ehrenreich put it, "References to women and civilians are embarrassingly slight." Robert F. Jefferson, writing in the Historian, also commented on the absence of minority and female perspectives, but concluded that "The Soldiers' Tale makes a useful contribution to our understanding of war, memory, and society during the twentieth century."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Hynes, Samuel, Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator, Frederic Beil/Naval Institute Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Hynes, Samuel, The Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood before the War, Viking (New York, NY), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Atlantic, October, 1968, Steven Marcus, review of The Edwardian Turn of Mind, p. 132.

Biography, summer, 2003, John Gregory Dunne, review of The Growing Seasons, p. 537.

Booklist, December 15, 1996, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War, p. 695; February 13, 2003, Brendan Dowling, review of The Growing Seasons, p. 1035.

Commentary, September, 1977, Ronald Berman, review of The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930's, p. 78.

Historian, spring, 1993, Walter L. Arnstein, review of A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, p. 544; spring, 1999, Robert F. Jefferson, review of The Soldiers' Tale, p. 730.

Journal of Modern History, September, 1993, Margaret R. Higonnet, review of A War Imagined, p. 606; March, 1999, Robert Wohl, review of The Soldiers' Tale, p. 170.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2002, review of The Growing Season, p. 1823.

Library Journal, May 15, 1991, James A Casada, review of A War Imagined, p. 93.

Nation, May 12, 1997, Barbara Ehrenreich, review of The Soldiers' Tale, p. 21.

National Review, May 26, 1978, John R. Boly, review of The Auden Generation, p. 662; June 24, 1988, Jeffrey Hart, review of Flights of Passage, p. 47.

New Republic, July 20, 1968, Gertrude Himmelfarb, review of The Edwardian Turn of Mind, p. 28; December 3, 1977, William H. Pritchard, review of The Auden Generation, p. 35.

New Statesman, July 2, 1976, Stephen Spender, review of The Auden Generation, p. 19.

Newsweek, May 23, 1977, Walter Clemons, review of The Auden Generation, p. 88B.

New York Review of Books, June 9, 1977, Karl Miller, review of The Auden Generation, p. 15; March 26, 1992, Noel Annan, review of A War Imagined, p. 15.

New York Times, May 16, 1977, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The Auden Generation, p. 27.

New York Times Book Review, February 16, 1969, Michael Holroyd, review of The Edwardian Turn of Mind, p. 48; May 22, 1977, Diana Trilling, review of The Auden Generation, p. 9; April 24, 1988, Diane Ackerman, review of Flights of Passage, p. 9; June 2, 1991, Peter Vansittart, review of A War Imagined, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, April 26, 1991, review of A War Imagined, p. 50; January 6, 2003, review of The Growing Seasons, pp. 49-50.

Saturday Review, July 6, 1968, Marghanita Laski, review of The Edwardian Turn of Mind, p. 28.

Time, March 7, 1988, Paul Gray, review of Flights of Passage, p. 81.

Times Literary Supplement, April 7, 1989, Christopher Thorne, review of Flights of Passage, p. 371; July 7, 1995, Andrew Motion, review of The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy, p. 10; April 13, 1997, Gardner Botsford, review of The Soldiers' Tale, p. 6.

Virginia Quarterly Review, autumn, 1968, William E. Buckler, review of The Edwardian Turn of Mind, p. 674.

Washington Monthly, January-February, 1998, Thomas E. Ricks, review of The Soldiers' Tale, p. 56.

Washington Post Book World, May 22, 1977, John Breslin, review of The Auden Generation, p. 1; April 3, 1988, James Salter, review of Flights of Passage, p. 3.