Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish | |
---|---|
William Benton | |
9th Librarian of Congress | |
In office July 10, 1939 – December 19, 1944 | |
President | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
Preceded by | Herbert Putnam |
Succeeded by | Luther H. Evans |
Personal details | |
Born | Boston, Massachusetts , US | May 7, 1892
Occupation |
|
Known for | Poetry, drama, essays, librarianship |
Writing career | |
Genre | Poetry, drama, essays |
Notable works | Panic, J.B. |
Archibald MacLeish (May 7, 1892 – April 20, 1982) was an American poet and writer, who was associated with the
Early years
MacLeish was born in
His studies were interrupted by World War I, in which he served first as an ambulance driver and later as an artillery officer. He fought at the Second Battle of the Marne.[5] His brother, Kenneth MacLeish, was killed in action during the war.[6] He graduated from law school in 1919, taught law for a semester for the government department at Harvard, then worked briefly as an editor for The New Republic. He next spent three years practicing law with the Boston firm Choate, Hall & Stewart.[7] MacLeish expressed his disillusion with war in his poem Memorial Rain, published in 1926.[8]
Years in Paris
In 1923, MacLeish left his law firm and moved with his wife to Paris, where they joined the community of literary
While in Paris,
In 1934, he wrote a libretto for Union Pacific [ru], ballet by Nicolas Nabokov and Léonide Massine (Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo); it premiered in Philadelphia with a great success.
In 1938, MacLeish published as a book a long poem "Land of the Free", built around a series of 88 photographs of the rural depression by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, and the Farm Security Administration and other agencies. The book was influential on Steinbeck in writing The Grapes of Wrath.
Librarian of Congress
American Libraries has called MacLeish "one of the 100 most influential figures in librarianship during the 20th century" in the United States.[10] MacLeish's career in libraries and public service began, not with an internal desire, but from a combination of the urging of a close friend, Felix Frankfurter, and as MacLeish put it, "The President decided I wanted to be Librarian of Congress."[11] Franklin D. Roosevelt's nomination of MacLeish was a controversial and highly political maneuver fraught with several challenges.
MacLeish sought support from expected places such as the president of Harvard, MacLeish's current place of work, but found none. Support from unexpected places, such as
MacLeish became privy to Roosevelt's views on the library during a private meeting with the President. According to Roosevelt, the pay levels were too low and many people would need to be removed. Soon afterward, MacLeish joined the retiring Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam for a luncheon in New York. At the meeting, Putnam relayed his intention to continue working at the library, that he would be given the title of librarian emeritus, and that his office would be down the hall from MacLeish's. The meeting further crystallized for MacLeish that as Librarian of Congress, he would be "an unpopular newcomer, disturbing the status quo."[12]: 302
A question from MacLeish's daughter, Mimi, led him to realize, "Nothing is more difficult for the beginning librarian than to discover [in] what profession he was engaged."[12]: 309 Mimi, his daughter, had inquired about what her daddy was to do all day, "...hand out books?"[12]: 309 MacLeish created his own job description and set out to learn about how the library was currently organized. In October 1944, MacLeish described that he did not set out to reorganize the library, rather "...one problem or another demanded action, and each problem solved led on to another that needed attention."[12]: 318
MacLeish's chief accomplishments had their start in instituting daily staff meetings with division chiefs, the chief assistant librarian, and other administrators. He then set about setting up various committees on various projects, including acquisitions policy, fiscal operations, cataloging, and outreach. The committees alerted MacLeish to various problems throughout the library. Putnam was conspicuously not invited to attend these meetings, resulting in the librarian emeritus' feelings being "mortally hurt", but according to MacLeish, it was necessary to exclude Putnam; otherwise, "he would have been sitting there listening to talk about himself which he would take personally."[12]: 319
First and foremost, under Putnam, the library was acquiring more books than it could catalog. A report in December 1939, found that over one-quarter of the library's collection had not yet been cataloged. MacLeish solved the problem of acquisitions and cataloging through establishing another committee instructed to seek advice from specialists outside of the Library of Congress. The committee found many subject areas of the library to be adequate and many other areas to be, surprisingly, inadequately provided for. A set of general principles on acquisitions was then developed to ensure that, though it was impossible to collect everything, the Library of Congress would acquire the bare minimum of canons to meet its mission. These principles included acquiring all materials necessary to members of Congress and government officers, all materials expressing and recording the life and achievements of the people of the United States, and materials of other societies past and present that are of the most immediate concern to the peoples of the United States.[12]: 320
Secondly, MacLeish set about reorganizing the operational structure. Leading scholars in
Last, but not least, MacLeish promoted the Library of Congress through various forms of
World War II
Archibald MacLeish also assisted with the development of the new "
During
Return to writing
Despite a long history of debate over the merits of Marxism, MacLeish came under fire from anticommunists in the 1940s and 1950s, including J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy. Much of this was due to his involvement with left-wing organizations such as the League of American Writers, and to his friendships with prominent left-wing writers. Time magazine's Whittaker Chambers cited him as a fellow traveler in a 1941 article: "By 1938, U. S. Communists could count among their allies such names as Granville Hicks, Newton Arvin, Waldo Frank, Lewis Mumford, Matthew Josephson, Kyle Crichton (Robert Forsythe), Malcolm Cowley, Donald Ogden Stewart, Erskine Caldwell, Dorothy Parker, Archibald MacLeish, Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, John Steinbeck, George Soule, many another."[18]
In 1949, MacLeish became the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. He held this position until his retirement in 1962. In 1959, his play
MacLeish greatly admired T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and his work shows quite a bit of their influence. He was the literary figure who played the most important role in freeing Ezra Pound from St. Elisabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he was incarcerated for high treason between 1946 and 1958. MacLeish's early work was very traditionally modernist and accepted the contemporary modernist position holding that a poet was isolated from society. His most well-known poem, "Ars Poetica," contains a classic statement of the modernist aesthetic: "A poem should not mean / But be." He later broke with modernism's pure aesthetic. MacLeish himself was greatly involved in public life and came to believe that this was not only an appropriate, but also an inevitable role for a poet.
In 1969, MacLeish was commissioned by the New York Times to write a poem to celebrate the Apollo 11 Moon landing, which he entitled "Voyage to the Moon" and appeared on the front page of the July 21, 1969, edition of the Times. A. M. Rosenthal, then-editor of the Times, later recounted: "We decided what the front page of The Times would need when the men landed was a poem. What the poet wrote would count most, but we also wanted to say to our readers, look, this paper does not know how to express how it feels this day and perhaps you don't either, so here is a fellow, a poet, who will try for all of us. We called one poet who just did not think much of moons or us, and then decided to reach higher for somebody with more zest in his soul – for Archibald MacLeish, winner of three Pulitzer Prizes. He turned in his poem on time and entitled it 'Voyage to the Moon.'"[22]
Legacy
MacLeish worked to promote the arts, culture, and libraries. Among other impacts, MacLeish was the first Librarian of Congress to begin the process of naming what would become the
In the June 5, 1972, issue of The American Scholar, MacLeish laid out in an essay his philosophy on libraries and librarianship, further shaping modern thought on the subject:
No true book [...] was ever anything else than a report. [...] A true book is a report upon the mystery of existence [...] it speaks of the world, of our life in the world. Everything we have in the books on which our libraries are founded—
Moby Dick, it is still [...] a "report" upon the "mystery of things."But if this is what a book is [...], then a library [...] is an extraordinary thing. [...] The existence of a library is, in itself, an assertion. [...] It asserts that [...] all these different and dissimilar reports, these bits and pieces of experience, manuscripts in bottles, messages from long before, from deep within, from miles beyond, belonged together and might, if understood together, spell out the meaning which the mystery implies. [...] The library, almost alone of the great monuments of civilization, stands taller now than it ever did before. The city [...] decays. The nation loses its grandeur [...]. The university is not always certain what it is. But the library remains: a silent and enduring affirmation that the great Reports still speak, and not alone but somehow all together [...][13]
Two collections of MacLeish's papers are held at the
Personal life
In 1916, he married Ada Hitchcock, a musician.[28] MacLeish had three children: Kenneth, Mary Hillard, and William, the author of a memoir of his father, Uphill with Archie (2001).[29]
Awards and honors
- 1933: Pulitzer Prize for poetry(Conquistador )
- 1946: Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur
- 1950: elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[30]
- 1953: Pulitzer Prize for poetry(Collected Poems 1917–1952)
- 1953: National Book Award for Poetry (Collected Poems, 1917–1952)[31]
- 1953: Bollingen Prize in Poetry
- 1959: Pulitzer Prize for Drama (J.B.)
- 1959: Tony Award for Best Play (J.B.)
- 1976: elected to the American Philosophical Society[32]
- 1977: Presidential Medal of Freedom
Works
Poetry collections
- Class Poem (1915)
- Songs for a Summer's Day (1915)
- Tower of Ivory (1917)
- The Happy Marriage (1924)
- The Pot of Earth (1925)
- Nobodaddy (1926)
- Streets in the Moon (1926)[33]
- The Hamlet of A. Macleish (1928)
- Einstein (1929)
- New Found Land (1930)
- Conquistador (1932)
- Elpenor (1933)
- Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City (1933)
- Poems, 1924–1933 (1935)
- Public Speech (1936)
- The Land of the Free (1938)
- Actfive and Other Poems (1948)
- Collected Poems (1952)
- Songs for Eve (1954)
- The Collected Poems of Archibald MacLeish (1962)
- The Wild Old Wicked Man and Other Poems (1968)
- The Human Season, Selected Poems 1926–1972 (1972)
- New and Collected Poems, 1917–1976 (1976)
Prose
- Jews in America (1936)
- America Was Promises (1939)
- The Irresponsibles: A Declaration (1940)
- The American Cause (1941)
- A Time to Speak (1941)
- American Opinion and the War: the Rede Lecture (1942)
- A Time to Act: Selected Addresses (1943)
- Freedom Is the Right to Choose (1951)
- Art Education and the Creative Process (1954)
- Poetry and Experience (1961)
- The Dialogues of Archibald MacLeish and Mark Van Doren (1964)
- The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965)
- A Continuing Journey (1968)
- Champion of a Cause: Essays and Addresses on Librarianship (1971)
- Poetry and Opinion: the Pisan Cantos of Ezra Pound (1974)
- Riders on the Earth: Essays & Recollections (1978)
- Letters of Archibald MacLeish, 1907–1982 (1983)
Drama
- Union Pacific (ballet) (1934)
- Panic(1935)
- The Fall of the City (1937)
- Air Raid: A Verse Play for Radio (1938)[34]
- Colloquy for the States (1943)
- The American Story: Ten Broadcasts (1944)
- The Trojan Horse (1952)
- This Music Crept By Me on the Waters (1953)
- J.B. (1958)
- Three Short Plays: The Secret of Freedom. Air Raid. The Fall of the City. (1961)
- An Evening's Journey to Conway (1967)
- Herakles (1967)
- Scratch (1971)
- Magic Prison: the Poetry of Emily Dickinson (1975)
- The Great American Fourth of July Parade (1975)
- Six Plays (1980)
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c "Archibald MacLeish, 9th Librarian of Congress 1939-1944". Library of Congress. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
- ^ "Guide to the MacLeish Family Papers, 1898-1946". Vassar. Archived from the original on September 2, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
- ^ "Nuggets of History" (PDF). www.rhsil.org. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
- ^ Davis, Robert Gorham (August 10, 1986). "Lives of the Poet". The New York Times. Retrieved December 26, 2007.
- ISBN 0395493269.
- ^ Nettleton, George Henry (1925). Yale in the World War: Volume I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 286–7.
- ^ Kahlenberg, Richard (1999). Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 109.
- ^ a b c Barber, David. "Archibald MacLeish's Life and Career". Modern American Poetry. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
- ISBN 1-59017-066-0.
- ^ 100 of the Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th century (1999). American Libraries, 30(11), 39.
- ISBN 0-684-82495-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-595-17078-4.
- ^ ISBN 9780395263822.
- ^ Katz, Barry M. 1991. "German Historians in the Office of Strategic Services." In: An Interrupted Past: German Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States After 1933. Pages 136-137.
- ^ "UNESCO -- United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization -- International Affairs Office". www2.ed.gov. July 19, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
- ^ "UNESCO 1945: birth of an ideal". The UNESCO Courier: 3. October 1985.
- ^ "UNESCO Constitution". portal.unesco.org. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
- ^ Chambers, Whittaker (January 6, 1941). "The Revolt of the Intellectuals". Time. Archived from the original on June 9, 2010.
- ^ Heylin, 2011, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades: The 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 319.
- ^ Adam Langer, Bob Dylan’s First Musical Had a Devil of a Time, The New York Times, November 3, 2020, accessed November 5, 2020.
- ^ Dylan, 2004, Chronicles, Volume One, pp. 107–131.
- ^ Rosenthal, A.M. "ON MY MIND; Standby Update Moon Poem", The New York Times, New York, 18 July 1989. Retrieved on 27 December 2018.
- ^ Alenier, Karren L. "On Archibald MacLeish". Beltway: A Poetry Quarterly (Memorial Issue ed.).
- )
- )
- ^ "Archibald MacLeish Collection". Greenfield Community College. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
- ^ Moise, Arris; Wiese, Sadie; Sorenson, Clara (April 8, 2021). "Land Use History of MacLeish: A Cultural and Ecological Timeline of the Smith College Field Station". Land Use History of MacLeish.
- ^ "Archibald MacLeish". Retrieved December 3, 2010.
- ^ "We Pay Our Respects To—Archibald MacLeish". Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising. 22 (19). Washington, D.C.: Broadcasting Publications, Inc.: 73, 88 May 11, 1942.
- ^ "Archibald MacLeish". February 9, 2023.
- ^
"National Book Awards – 1953". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
(With acceptance speech by MacLeish and essay by John Murillo from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) - ^ "APS Member History".
- ^ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1926.
- ^ "Verse Play for Radio by Archibald MacLeish". The Hartford Courant Magazine. December 18, 1938. p. 7. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
References
- Grover Cleveland Smith (1971). Archibald MacLeish. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-0618-4.
External links
- Works by or about Archibald MacLeish at Wikisource
- Archibald MacLeish Collection and addition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
- Archibald MacLeish Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
- Archibald MacLeish Papers at Mount Holoke College
- Archibald MacLeish's Grave
- Benjamin DeMott (Summer 1974). "Archibald MacLeish, The Art of Poetry No. 18". The Paris Review. Summer 1974 (58).
- The Fall of the City, Columbia Workshop, CBS radio, 1937
- "Archibald MacLeish", Academy of American Poets
- James Dickey (2004). "Archibald MacLeish". In Donald J. Greiner (ed.). Classes on modern poets and the art of poetry. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-528-9.