Diana Trilling (née Rubin; July 21, 1905 – October 23, 1996) was an American literary critic and author, one of a group of left-wing writers known as the

New York Intellectuals The New York Intellectuals were a group of American writers and literary critics based in New York City in the mid-20th century. They advocated left-wing politics but were also firmly anti-Stalinist. The group is known for having sought to integra ...

Background

Born Diana Rubin, she married the literary and cultural critic Lionel Trilling in 1929 after an extended stay in Paris with childhood friend Margaret Lefranc. Her parents, Sadie (née Forbert) and Joseph Rubin, were Polish Jews, her father from Warsaw and her mother from the local countryside. She graduated from Radcliffe College.

Career

Diana Trilling was a reviewer for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'' magazine. Her works include ''We Must March My Darlings'' (1977), an essay collection; ''Mrs. Harris'' (1981), a study of and meditation on the trial of

Jean Harris Jean Struven Harris (April 27, 1923 – December 23, 2012) was the headmistress of The Madeira School for girls in McLean, Virginia, who made national news in the early 1980s when she was tried and convicted of the murder of her ex-lover, Her ...

; and ''The Beginning of the Journey'' (1993), a memoir of her life and marriage to Lionel Trilling. She was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1976.

Cultural impact

Carolyn Heilbrun Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (January 13, 1926 – October 9, 2003) was an American academic at Columbia University, the first woman to receive tenure in the English department, and a prolific feminist author of academic studies. In addition, beginning ...

wrote about Trilling in her own final memoirs, ''When Men Were the Only Models We Had'' (2002). In his 1986 essay collection '' The Moronic Inferno'', Martin Amis discusses the experience of meeting Trilling and her impact on

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

:Amis, Martin, "Diana Trilling at Claremont Avenue," ''The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America'', London: Jonathan Cape, 1986. p. 63-4.,

In New York, Diana Trilling is regarded with the suspicious awe customarily reserved for the city's senior literary ladies. Whenever I announced my intention of going along to interview her, people looked at me with trepidation, a new respect, a certain holy dread. I felt I was about to enter the lion's den — or the den of the literary lionness, which is often just as dangerous.

References

External links

''The New York Times''
obituary dated October 15, 1996

review dated October 24, 1993, of autobiography ''The Beginning of the Journey'' (article title: "It's Complicated... It's Very Complicated")
''National Review''
obituary dated November 25, 1996.
''The New Yorker''
reassessment dated May 29, 2017, "The Feuds of Diana Trilling: As a New York intellectual, she lived to battle her adversaries. Was her beloved husband among them?" *
Finding aid to Abraham Anderson interviews with Diana Trilling at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.Finding aid to Diana Trilling papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trilling, Diana 1905 births 1996 deaths Analysands of Ruth Mack Brunswick American people of Polish-Jewish descent Place of birth missing Place of death missing Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Jewish American writers 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers Radcliffe College alumni 20th-century American Jews

Background

Career

Cultural impact

References

Further reading

External links