born June 5, 1915, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.
died June 5, 1998, New York, N.Y.
U.S. literary critic.
His sweeping historical study of modern American literature, On Native Grounds (1942), won him instant recognition. Much of his criticism appeared in Partisan Review , The New Republic , and The New Yorker . His books include Starting Out in the Thirties (1965), New York Jew (1978), A Writer's America (1988), and God and the American Writer (1997).