James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Jeffrey J. Folks (Doshisha University)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

In July and August of 1936, James Agee and photographer Walker Evans travelled to the American South to research a story on sharecropping for

Fortune Magazine

. Their assignment, according to Agee's “Preface”, was to produce a “photographic and verbal record of the daily living and environment of an average white family of tenant farmers”. Beyond this “nominal subject”, however, Agee ultimately conceived of the project as a work of several volumes to be entitled “Three Tenant Families” (only the first volume,

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

, was ever written). This larger work would consist of nothing less than “an independent inquiry into certain normal predicaments of human divinity”.

In speaking from the beginning of “normal predicaments of human divinity”, Agee

2053 words

Citation: Folks, Jeffrey J.. "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4015, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4015 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.