TRILLING, LIONEL

born July 4, 1905, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Nov. 5, 1975, New York, N.Y. American literary critic and teacher whose criticism was informed by psychological, sociological, and philosophical methods and insights. Educated at Columbia University (M.A., 1926; Ph.D., 1938), Trilling taught briefly at the University of Wisconsin and at Hunter College in New York City and in 1931 joined the faculty of Columbia, where he remained for the rest of his life. Trilling's critical writings include studies of Matthew Arnold (1939) and E.M. Forster (1943), as well as collections of literary essays: The Liberal Imagination (1950), Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning (1965), and Sincerity and Authenticity and Mind in the Modern World (both 1972). He also wrote Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture (1955) and The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1962). His single novel, The Middle of the Journey (1947), concerns the moral and political developments of the liberal mind in America in the 1930s and '40s. Trilling was married to Diana Trilling, ne Rubin, also a critic and writer.