Archibald MacLeish Summary

Biography Essay"Ars Poetica" and Archibald MacLeish are inextricably bound for most readers of modern American poetry, but neither this poem nor "The End of the World" (both first collected in Streets... Read more

Unlike many members of the American expatriate community in France between the World Wars, Archibald MacLeish is best known not as an alienated modernist, but as the continuator of the nineteenth-cent... Read more

"Ars Poetica" and Archibald MacLeish are inextricably bound for most readers of modern American poetry, but neither this poem nor "The End of the World" (both first collected in Streets in the Moon, ... Read more

In the following review of New Found Land, Zabel concentrates on MacLeish's poetic style—which he finds to be strongly influenced by other poets, especially T. S. Eliot—and forese... Read more

In the following review, Zabel traces MacLeish's development as a poet through the early 1930s and the publication of Poems, 1924-1933. “My development as a poet is of no interest to me,... Read more

In the following essay, Van Ghent presents a thematic overview of MacLeish's writing up to 1938, considering its concentration on metaphysical issues and human fate. MacLeish's first ten... Read more

In the following essay, Kohler describes MacLeish as a “spokesman of the modern age” whose social poetry reaffirms the American ideal of human freedom. Archibald MacLeish has brought poe... Read more

In the following essay, Jarrell critiques MacLeish's political/allegorical radio play The Fall of the City, finding it riddled with inconsistencies and calling it a “melodramatic oversim... Read more

In the following essay, Christensen considers critical reaction to MacLeish's verse play J. B. and defends the work from its detractors. The publication a few years ago of J. B., a play in vers... Read more

In the following essay, Sullivan explicates MacLeish's paradoxical poem “Ars Poetica,” viewing it as “a rarity among poems on the art of poetry.” Archibald MacLeish&... Read more

In the following review of New and Collected Poems, 1917-1976, Carruth lauds MacLeish's overall work as a poet while devoting particular attention to his epic Conquistador. Almost 60 years of p... Read more

In the following essay, Cavanagh analyzes MacLeish's effort to compose a Modernist epic poem in Conquistador. Since its publication and Pulitzer award in 1932, MacLeish's Conquistador ha... Read more

In the following essay, originally presented as a lecture in 1982, Ellis discusses MacLeish's poetic rendering of the nature of women as closer to the “truly true” than the nature... Read more

In the following essay, Lane analyzes the spatial imagery and dialectic pattern of MacLeish's long poem Einstein. In 1926 Archibald MacLeish included in part two, “Several Shadows of a S... Read more

In the following essay, Stout compares MacLeish's verse play J. B. and Robert Frost's dramatic poem “A Masque of Reason” as modern re-compositions of the biblical Book of J... Read more

In the following essay, Blum recounts MacLeish's literary and political career, stressing the poet's liberalism and belief in democracy. Art encompassed experience: so believed Archibald... Read more

Critical Essay by John Wain Mr. MacLeish has a weakness for the large subject; he finds convenient fairways in the major myths; previous works of his have rehandled the material of Hamlet and of the B... Read more

Critical Essay by James K. Robinson MacLeish's The Great American Fourth of July Parade is subtitled A Verse Play for Radio. It is a public speech to be broadcast—MacLeish's contr... Read more

Critical Essay by Tom Johnson Ten years ago Archibald MacLeish published a prose collection called A Continuing Journey; it was a public book, addresses and essays on topics ranging from literary theo... Read more