Publications:
God's Scrivener:
“God's Scrivener is a thoughtful, moving, and deeply researched portrait of the otherworldly mystic and poet Jones Very. Clark Davis reveals that, far from being the punchline of an old joke, the unjustly forgotten Very was nothing less than the stillness at the heart of Transcendentalism, joining Thoreau and Whitman as one of the era’s great poet-prophets who articulated a powerful and innovative response to the pressures of modernity. Davis’s biography radically deepens our understanding of the movement’s potential and its limits, a message with surprising resonance today. This is essential reading for anyone who cares about Transcendentalism, the poetry of faith and doubt, or the place of Christian mysticism at the heart of America’s longing for a better world.”—Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life
“Massively well researched and well argued, God’s Scrivener benefits from Clark Davis’s informed attention to a trove of documents not available fifty-six years ago when the last biography of Jones Very was published. By showing how the life, times, and works illuminate each other, Davis restores to us an author once considered one of the best sonnet writers in the language. Even as he establishes Very’s historical importance, Davis clearly explores both the strengths and dangers of his example.”—Robert Daly, author of God’s Altar: The World and the Flesh in Puritan Poetry
“God’s Scrivener, the first biography of the enigmatic and fascinating Transcendentalist poet Jones Very in more than half a century, is a masterful revaluation of both Very’s life and work. Davis’s careful analysis of Very’s sometimes ecstatic poetry and surviving accounts of his unconventional behavior help to make sense of Very’s state of mind during the period when he came to public attention in the intellectual, religious, and literary circles of Salem and the greater Boston area. Mining the poet’s neglected ‘commonplace books’ to great effect, Davis builds the most complete picture yet of the poet’s intellectual and spiritual development in his formative years.”— Helen R. Deese, editor, Jones Very: The Complete Poems
“In God’s Scrivener: The Madness and Meaning of Jones Very, Clark Davis doesn’t spend much time on his subject’s spectacular breakdown. Instead, relying on new research, he painstakingly reconstructs everything that came before and after. . . . Mr. Davis wonders, at the end of his fine biography, if the world really needs ‘the strange purity’ of Very’s voice. But if you like your poems plain and unfussy, written as if every word mattered and were meant for you and no one else, give Very’s poetry a try. You will even get the occasional piece of useful life advice. Feeling too wrapped up in your own concerns? ‘Open thy window, gaze abroad / Go forth and walk an hour.’” ― Wall Street Journal
"Here, and throughout this rich and finely woven narrative, Davis’s deep knowledge of the cultural and historical contexts of the era along with his use of Very’s commonplace books and sermons in addition to his known letters and poems offers readers a more complete portrait of Jones Very’s world than has been hitherto known and even begins to gesture towards a reevaluation of his position in the American literary canon." -- Church History
“Davis . . . enthusiastically argues for a ‘reevaluation of the existing biographical evidence’ in his sympathetic God’s Scrivener. . . . To Davis, Very in the end is a kind of hero devoted to his vision and voice, a maverick committed to something like the beatitudes. He emerges as a kind of protomodern figure, resolute and true, who casts ‘a strong light on the compromises and half-truths of others.’”--New York Review of Books
“In our current era of literary-theoretical pyrotechnics, it can be easy to overlook the incredible detail that can be panned from the past by old-school, meticulous sifting of the records. God’s Scrivener is an ode to ass-in-chair scholarship. Davis has identified and read the books Very checked out of Harvard’s library. . . . Davis has tracked down surviving letters, scanned the poems, and mined the genealogical history. In one memorable chapter . . . , he reads deeply into the family’s surviving material history, all in order to approach the living poet as close as possible. The picture that emerges is of a passionate, brilliant, inflexible, and conflicted human being torn by an insatiable trinity: sexual desire, love of the beautiful (especially that expressed in Shakespeare’s sonnets), and a drive for Christian purity.” -- Poetry
It Starts with Trouble:
"More than three decades after [Goyen's] death, his stubbornness finds its reward in this smart, admiring and attentive biography by Clark Davis." —Louis Bayard, The New York Times
"Mr. Davis has done a great service in recounting the major events of Goyen’s life, and reminding us, along the way, of his remarkable literary achievement." —The Wall Street Journal
"Ultimately, what makes It Starts with Trouble an essential read for anyone interested in literature and art is Davis’s painstaking research combined with the passion and intelligence he brings to his subject, bolstering a compelling case to reclaim Goyen’s place in American letters . . . . Like Goyen, Davis understands what writing is for. He reminds us of the stakes of art, of being an artist." —Peter Grandbois, Los Angeles Review of Books
"In this stellar biography, Davis (After the Whale) deftly examines the life of a complex and overlooked figure in the history of American literature. . . . This lively and enlightening biography will resurrect Goyen’s brilliant writing for a new generation of readers." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Hawthorne's Shyness:
"Clark Davis sets out to offer a critique of a prevailing mode of historicist scholarship in American literary study and to contest that scholarly tradition by offering a new reading of Hawthorne's work, one grounded in a conception of the relation between writer and reader enacted in Hawthorne's writing and informed by the ethical thought of Emmanuel Levinas. The book succeeds on both counts. With the striking and often surprising account of Hawthorne's career and commitments as a writer Davis offers, Hawthorne's Shyness makes a powerful contribution both to our understanding of Hawthorne's work and to our sense of how literary scholarship might be practiced at present."
— Richard Millington, Smith College, author of Practicing Romance: Narrative Form and Cultural Engagement in Hawthorne's Fiction
"Davis's argument and his compelling readings of Hawthorne's work make a timely contribution to Hawthorne criticism and provide a notable example for the validity of reading literature from an ethical perspective."
— Frank Obenland - American Studies
After the Whale:
Winner 1993 Elizabeth Agee Prize in American Literature
"An important, well-executed study. With intelligence, conviction, assiduity, skill, and considerable economy, Davis has drawn a convincing line of connection through Herman Melville's later works. This book will be widely read and appreciated, taking its place among the more important studies of Melville."
--Stanton B. Garner, Professor Emeritus of English, the University of Texas at Arlington