World Literary Awards

← Back to Home

Archibald MacLeish

アーチボルド・マクリーシュ

Archibald MacLeish

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1892-05-07 （Glencoe, Illinois, U.S.）
Died
1982-04-20 （Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.） age 89
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Residence History
Glencoe, Illinois (childhood) → Paris (1923–1928) → Conway / Boston, Massachusetts (later life)

Career

Occupations
poet, playwright, librarian, professor, public servant
Active Years
1915-1978
Affiliations
Harvard University (Boylston Professor), Fortune (writer/editor), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (member)
Memberships
Skull and Bones, League of American Writers, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, Psi Upsilon
Influenced By
T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound

Education

Hotchkiss School
Period: 1907–1911
Year of Graduation: 1911
Country: United States
Preparatory school (boarding school)
Yale University
Faculty of Arts / English
Degree: BA
Period: 1911–1915
Year of Graduation: 1915
Country: United States
Studied English; elected Phi Beta Kappa; member of Skull and Bones
Harvard Law School
Law School / Law
Degree: LLB
Period: 1916–1919（中断あり）
Year of Graduation: 1919
Country: United States
Service interrupted by World War I; served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review

Awards

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1933
Work: Conquistador
Organization: Pulitzer Prize (Columbia University)
Result: 受賞
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1953
Work: Collected Poems, 1917–1952
Organization: Pulitzer Prize (Columbia University)
Result: 受賞
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
1959
Work: J.B.
Organization: Pulitzer Prize (Columbia University)
Result: 受賞
Tony Award for Best Play
1959
Work: J.B.
Category: 戯曲
Organization: The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League
Result: 受賞
National Book Award for Poetry
1953
Work: Collected Poems, 1917–1952
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 受賞
Bollingen Prize in Poetry
1953
Work: Collected Poems, 1917–1952
Organization: Bollingen Prize committee
Result: 受賞
Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur
1946
Organization: Government of France
Result: 受賞
Presidential Medal of Freedom
1977
Organization: United States Presidential Office
Result: 受賞
Elected to the American Philosophical Society
1976
Organization: American Philosophical Society
Result: 選出
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1950
Organization: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Result: 選出

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Conquistador

1932 long poem

A long poem presenting Cortés's conquest of the Aztecs as symbolic of the American experience. Winner of the 1933 Pulitzer Prize.

empirehistoryAmerican identity

J.B.

1958 play (biblical reimagining)

An allegorical play based on the Book of Job. Winner of the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.

faithsufferinghuman condition
Adaptations
  • [theatre] J.B. (1958)

The Land of the Free

1938 poetry book (with photographs)

A poetry book built around 88 photographs by Dorothea Lange and others, depicting the rural depression of the 1930s. Influenced Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

social realityGreat DepressionAmerican landscape

Bibliography

  • Class Poem (1915)
  • Songs for a Summer's Day (1915)
  • Tower of Ivory (1917)
  • The Pot of Earth (1925)
  • Einstein (1929)
  • New Found Land (1930)
  • Conquistador (1932)
  • The Land of the Free (1938)
  • Collected Poems, 1917–1952 (1952)
  • J.B. (1958)
  • The Collected Poems of Archibald MacLeish (1962)
  • Riders on the Earth: Essays & Recollections (1978)

Adaptations

  • J.B. (stage production, Broadway)

Translations of Works

  • Conquistador (translated into multiple languages)
  • J.B. (translated and staged in other languages)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
modernist poetic experimentation blended with traditional formspublicly engaged, political themes handled in poetry and drama
Recurring Motifs
war and its aftermathhistory and memorydemocracy and the public spherehuman suffering and faith

Legacy

Archibald MacLeish was a major figure in 20th-century American poetry, known for his contributions to library and cultural policy, his public intellectual role, and multiple Pulitzer Prizes. He influenced librarianship and the promotion of poetry; his papers are held in several archives.

Academic Societies

  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • American Philosophical Society

Archives

  • Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Archibald MacLeish Collection)
  • Archibald MacLeish Collection at Greenfield Community College
  • Harry Ransom Center (Archibald MacLeish Collection)
  • Mount Holyoke College (Archibald MacLeish Papers)

In Popular Culture

  • Poem "Voyage to the Moon" published in Time magazine on July 21, 1969, honoring the Apollo 11 moon landing
  • Attempted collaboration with Bob Dylan on the musical Scratch (collaboration failed)

Quotes

  • A poem should not mean / But be.
    Source: "Ars Poetica" (1926)
  • Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.
    Source: UNESCO Preamble (contribution) (1945)

Trivia

  • Won three Pulitzer Prizes (1933, 1953, 1959)
  • Served as the 9th Librarian of Congress (1939–1944)
  • The Land of the Free combined poetry with photographs by Dorothea Lange and others and influenced Steinbeck