Archibald MacLeish essays

Archibald MacLeish essays Twentieth century nonfiction was mostly written about the changes America was going through. Archibald MacLeish, a well-known poet,laywright, and public official, wrote about the social and political issues of the time. He argued that the personality of the poet should be independent from the integrity of the poem's existence. His public service work and concern for the social problems through his writing, make him a true all-American. Archibald MacLeish was born in 1892 in glencoe, Illinois. He served in World War I before studying law and earning a degree at Harvard. He was determined to concentrate on his writing so he joined the colony of famous writers in Paris. He wrote verses that reflected the many artistic and social concerns of the day. He wrote the volumes The Happy Marriage, The Pot of Earth, Streets on the Moon, and The Hamlet of a MacLeish during that time also. When he returned to his Massachusetts farm in 1928 he became editor of Fortune. He still continued to write poems and dramatic verse. His sense of socila concern was combined with his art. MacLeish's best poems are morally sensitive explorations of the human perdicament. Influences for his poetry were myth and literary tradition. Other influences were Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. He also used biblical stories. A verse play J.B. was based on the book of Job. He won a Pulitzer prize for that play. MacLeish was successful in his lifetime winning a total of three Pulitzer prizes. the other were for Conquistador, about the spanish conquest, and Collected Poems. In the essay "the Unimagined America", from A Continuing Journey, Archibald MacLeish writes about the power of imagination and how it built America today. He calls upon Americans to be more imaginative and have faith in the future. His purpoes for writing the essay was to make readers aware of the fact that America took alot of creativity to be what it is today. ...