Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was born in 1892 in Glencoe, Illinois (Ellmann, O'Clair, and Ramazani 514). He was well educated, and he earned his Bachelor of Arts at Yale University. He also attended Harvard Law School for a year before marrying Ada Taylor Hitchcock, with whom he had four children, in 1916. In 1917 he enlisted in the army to fight in World War I and served on the front lines before being sent back to the United States in order to train new recruits. After the war, during which MacLeish's first book of poetry was published, he returned to Harvard. He graduated at the top of his class, and then worked at Harvard for a short time before joining a law firm in Boston. Although he was good at his work, his lack of time to write poetry frustrated him, so in 1923 he and his family moved to France for a fresh start (Barber). MacLeish published four books of poetry during the five years that he lived in France, after which he returned to the United States. He became a writer for Fortune magazine, and in his free time he began to write plays and essays that focused on the evils and necessities of war. MacLeish became very well known as a writer; however, his political views were very controversial, and many U.S. citizens felt contempt for him. Despite this, in 1939 President Roosevelt appointed MacLeish to the post of librarian of Congress (Ellmann, O'Clair, and Ramazani 515). A few years later, he was given the position of assistant secretary of state. MacLeish was ready to step out of the public eye, though, and after a year he resigned. For a brief time he worked to organize the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and then he returned to Harvard to teach. He taught English there for 13 years before retiring, and lived a quiet home life until he died in 1982 (Bowman).

MacLeish's poem "The End of the World," one of his most famous pieces, was published in 1926. It is split into two stanzas. The first stanza, eight lines long, has the rhyme scheme of ababcdcd. The second stanza is a sestet, and is written in the rhyme scheme of efefgg. This intriguing poem relies on an extended metaphor to get its point across. The circus that is described in the first stanza is a metaphor for life. In the last line of the first stanza, the end of the world comes. The circus audience is described as having "white faces" and "dazed eyes" (line 10), imagery that implies death. On line 12, MacLeish describes God's angels as "those with vast wings." The sky, and everything else around it, no longer exists; the world has come to an end and there is nothing left. This poem implies that death can come at any moment. It also suggests that death is a frightening, vast, and mysterious thing.

Bibliography

Poem:

MacLeish, Archibald. "The End of the World." The Norton Antholody of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Volume 1. Eds. Ellmann, Richard, Robert O'Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2003. 516. Print.

Biography:

Barber, David. "Archibald MacLeish Biography." Famous Poets and Poems. Famous Poets and Poems, n.d. Web. Jan 22 2011. http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/archibald_macleish/biography.

Bowman, David. Eds. Carnes, Mark C. and John A. Garraty. "Archibald MacLeish's Life and Career." Modern American Poetry. Oxford University Press, 1999. Web. Jan 22 2011. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/macleish/life.htm.

Ellmann, Richard, Robert O'Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. The Norton Antholody of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Volume 1. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2003. Print.