MacLeish: The Lost Poet

It seems deeply troubling — to say the least — that a poet like Archibald MacLeish is fading into the shadows of history. While 50 years ago he was nearing equality with Robert Frost, almost no one talks about MacLeish today. The “Ars Poetica” (see the present asisaid quote above) poet was so much more and yet few of his interesting works are readily available. Tonight, for example, I went on Google hoping to find two poems from Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City, a witty critique of the excesses of capitalism and the failings of socialism put together… how often can you find both of those together? Searching on the web, you won't even find MacLeish's combination: at least as far as I can tell, it is not any place that Google has indexed.

I need to stop by Amazon and order the complete (or at least, near complete) collection of MacLeish's poems — it is only twelve bucks. But it is a shame that ordering such a collection is the only way people today can see some of these marvelous poems, political and otherwise.

In honor this is excellent “lost” poet, I encourage you to enjoy these two poems, his most famous:

• Ars Poetica
• You, Andrew Marvell (it helps on this one if you've read Marvell's To His Coy Mistress recently). Note the emphasis on time's “winged chariot” in Marvell's poem, then note exactly what the traveller in MacLeish's poem is doing. Masterful!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I'll see if I can locate some of my more obscure favorites online and post link(s) to them.

English on the Edge?

Imagine if fifty or a hundred years from now those living in your hometown spoke a tongue alien to yours. It is, in my estimation, something extremely possible in the United States.

I think back to the language my distant ancestors must have spoken. Anglo-Saxon is as alien to me as perhaps American might be someday. It is not until well after the Norman invasion that the dialect of well connected London (which was absorbing the Normans' Latin-based French) that things start to be readable. For instance, I can understand:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of march hath perced to
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour…
— You Know the Source, Don't ya?

But I cannot process this nearly as easily, although I can assemble the meaning, despite it being written approximately the same time:

SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye, Þe bor brittened and brent to bronde and askez,
Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wrot
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe….
— 10 Points to the Person who knows what this is.

While I'm taking the long way around here, it is all aimed at a simple point: presently, we have a massive immigration into this country from Mexico. Unlike the Anglo-Saxons, we are not being “invaded,” but we are having a major influx of people who speak a Latinate language come into this country. These days, it isn't unusual to be walking around a store and hear people some speaking Spanish rather than English.

I suspect it will soon be hard to do business without knowing some Spanish (something I really should learn one of these days). Eventually, one of two things could happen: (1) Spanish could supersede English completely or at least among the lower and lower-middle classes; or (2) we could end up with a hybrid language. I tend to think the latter is the most likely, considering that English speakers who learn Spanish for the sake of communicating with the increasingly large non-English speaking minority would take English syntax and phrases with them and mix them in common dialogue.

This could be a good thing, considering that English has been rather stagnate in the last 500 years compared to the 500 prior to that, although as a whole I think it is a sad scenario to consider (with no offense intended to my Spanish speaking friends). English is — I admit bias here — beautiful partially because of its simple, mostly inflection free system of grammar. It is something different. It is not, by any means, the most technically elegant language, but none the less, it serves its purpose well. It is odd to think that someday not that far from now people might have trouble reading this message, much less any of the classical English works.

Is the US alone in this? No, not at all. Consider the massive immigration of Muslims to Europe. At the rate it is going, the day is not far away when the continent, and likely the UK as well, will have more Middle Eastern Muslims (the majority of which would probably prefer their native Semetic and Iranian languages over the Romantic and Germanic ones) than Europeans. I'll lay off on bets as to the longevity of languages in Europe, but I tend to think we are on the cusp of a massive change.

Alas poor English, I knew it, Horatio.

Classic Humor

This gives me a smile each time I read it — particularly the closing couplet.

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite—
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”

— Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, I

Why the poetry tonight? Well, I'm working on an end of semester poetry project, albeit not dealing with our friend Sidney (although I'll consider my work perfected if I manage to fit in at least one reference to his Defense of Poesy where it is actually meaningful). My poet vicit… errr… subject is Archibald MacLeish — another likable poet. As I'm writing this, I'm staring at a big stack of books by and about MacLeish that have made their way here from across the state through the MOBIUS interlibrary loan system. Sounds like a good weekend project, eh?

Bush Promotes Him Again: I need to do a post on Alberto Gonzales as well. I can't really find much of a record (it seems he doesn't have a huge public record), but he looks like a strict constructionist, as far as I can tell. He also sounds like he might be a bit less of a lightening rod than Attorney General Ashcroft. Certainly, I think the president will retain more political capital with this choice than if he had found an Ashcroft, Jr. Ed, I think, is right though — the AG's seat does turn people into monsters… maybe more frequent turnover would be a good idea.

Shakespearean Backache?

I decided to get the complete works of Shakespeare on Amazon a few weeks back. I'll need them eventually for a Shakespeare class, and I thought it might come in handy in the mean time. I read the description, which seemed to indicate it was 2057 pages in two volumes. That sounded alright. It might be a bit of a bear to hall around, but the part about putting it in two volumes seemed like a good idea.

It pays to read descriptions carefully.

As it turns out, that was the description for the more expensive version of the Riverside Shakespeare, not the one I ordered. I had the Amazon box sitting on the couch for the last week, and finally decided to open it up today. When I opened it, I quickly realized that it was not in two volumes. This thing is a monster. It is nearly a foot tall and 2/3 of the same in width. It is the better part of three inches thick, and must weigh about the same as a Ford Explorer. Or perhaps a Hummer. And speaking of cars, this book would be an ideal way for the local junkyard to crush old cars — of course, not much would be left after the collision. Not much left of the car, I mean — the book would certainly survive.

I thought about sending it back and ordering the $20 more expensive version that divides things into two volumes, but I think I've thought better of it. This is just a book that won't be traveling with me. If I need to carry the bard's works around, I shall get a single play at a time from Dover Thrift Editions. At a buck fifty a piece, its hard to imagine a better deal than Dover's republications of classic works.

Speaking of which, I ordered one of those too. I decided I needed my own personal copy of one of my favorite works, Voltaire's Candide. That's truly a delightful satire that I was sad to say I did not possess a copy of. I do now. For $3.00 (including a $1.50 handling fee for Amazon to get it from Dover — I'm not sure what that was about), I now own my very own copy. If that isn't “the best of all possible worlds,” it certainly is close enough. I'm sure Dr. Pangloss would agree.