Archibald MacLeish Biography

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Dictionary of Literary Biography on Archibald MacLeish

In a distinguished and kaleidoscopic career spanning more than six decades Archibald MacLeish, chiefly renowned as a major American poet, has also served as soldier, educator, lawyer, journalist, librarian, political essayist, literary critic, social commentator, statesman, philanthropist, and playwright. This vast diversity of endeavor reflects his fundamental philosophy of art, including poetry and drama, that casts aside ivory-tower isolationism in favor of a spirited activism that leaves no corner of life unexplored. MacLeish himself best summarized the matter in 1958 when he wrote for Atlantic Monthly: "To declare, as the American aesthetic seems to do, that the effort to act upon the external world in the making of a work of art is a betrayal of the work of art is a misconception of the nature of art. The nature of art is action, and there is no part of human experience, public or private, on which it cannot act or should not." By resolutely adhering to this philosophy in print and on the stage, MacLeish has repeatedly "brought himself into sharp conflict with those who are partisan in politics, orthodox in religion, and dogmatic in art."

MacLeish wrote only seven stage plays and one libretto between 1924 and 1971.

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