MacLeish should be remembered for this humane voice through the several decades of the twentieth century where there appeared to be little to be optimistic about; he should also be remembered for his virtuosity in lyric poetry and verse plays and for his contribution to the development of the modern verse play for stage and radio.
MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois, "in a wooden chateau" overlooking Lake Michigan, the son of Andrew MacLeish and his third wife, Martha Hillard MacLeish, Andrew was a Glasgow Scot, Martha a Connecticut Yankee. The young MacLeish attended public schools in Glencoe and the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut (1907-1911), a preparatory school which he hated but which prepared him for Yale. At Yale he wrote poetry and short stories for the Yale Literary Magazine , swam for the swimming team, and played center on the freshman football team. MacLeish later remembered the Harvard coach called him the "dirtiest little sonofabitch of a center to visit Cambridge, Massachusetts." The poet wittily noted that he really did not deserve the "honor" because he was not all that little. He completed his degree in 1915 and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, but he says his education did not really begin until he entered Harvard Law School in 1915.
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