Part 36 (1/2)
Ledoux, Louis V. [1880-1948] (1) Born at New York City, June 6, 1880. Educated at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1902. He is the author of ”Songs from the Silent Land”, 1905; ”The Soul's Progress”, 1907; ”Yzdra: A Poetic Drama”, 1909; ”The Shadow of Etna”, 1914; ”The Story of Eleusis: A Lyrical Drama”, 1916.
Le Gallienne, Richard. [1866-1947] (4) Born at Liverpool, England, January 20, 1866. He was already a well-known poet, novelist, and critic when he took up his residence in the United States. In each of these fields Mr. Le Gallienne has achieved conspicuous success and it would be difficult to say what phase of his literary work should take precedence of the others.
Among the best known of his prose works are: ”The Quest of the Golden Girl”, ”Book Bills of Narcissus”, ”An Old Country House”, ”Little Dinners with the Sphinx”, etc. In criticism he has done particularly fine work in his study of George Meredith and in his volume, ”Att.i.tudes and Avowals”.
In poetry, with which we are chiefly concerned, he has given us several volumes distinguished by that delicacy and sensitive feeling for beauty which characterize all of his work. These are: ”English Poems”, 1892; ”Stevenson, and Other Poems”, 1895; ”New Poems”, 1909; ”The Lonely Dancer”, 1913. In addition to these volumes, Mr. Le Gallienne has made an admirable paraphrase of the ”Rubaiyat”
of Omar Khayyam and of a group of odes from the ”Divan” of Hafiz.
Lindsay, Vachel. [1879-1931] (3) Born November 10, 1879. Educated at Hiram College, Ohio.
He took up the study of art and studied at the Art Inst.i.tute, Chicago, 1900-03 and at the New York School of Art, 1904-05.
For a time after his technical study, he lectured upon art in its practical relation to the community, and returning to his home in Springfield, Illinois, issued what one might term his manifesto in the shape of ”The Village Magazine”, divided about equally between prose articles, pertaining to beautifying his native city, and poems, ill.u.s.trated by his own drawings. Soon after this, Mr. Lindsay, taking as scrip for the journey, ”Rhymes to be Traded for Bread”, made a pilgrimage on foot through several Western States going as far afield as New Mexico. The story of this journey is given in his volume, ”Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty”. Mr. Lindsay first attracted attention in poetry by ”General William Booth Enters into Heaven”, a poem which became the t.i.tle of his first volume, in 1913. His second volume was ”The Congo”, published in 1914. He is attempting to restore to poetry its early appeal as a spoken art, and his later work differs greatly from the selections contained in this anthology.
Lodge, George Cabot. [1873-1909] (2) Born at Boston, October 12, 1873. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Paris. He did his first work in poetry at Harvard in the stimulating companions.h.i.+p of a little group of poets including Trumbull Stickney, William Vaughn Moody, and Philip Henry Savage, all of whom, by a strange fatality, died within a few years after leaving the University. Mr. Lodge was a poet whose gift followed cla.s.sical lines, but was none the less individual and sincere. His complete work in lyric and dramatic poetry has been gathered into two volumes: ”Poems and Dramas”, 1911. He died at Boston in 1909.
Lowell, Amy. [1874-1925] (1) Born at Boston, February 9, 1874. Educated at private schools.
She has been prominently identified with the ”Imagist” movement in poetry and with the technical use of 'vers libre'. These movements, however, were not yet influencing poetry when ”The Little Book of Modern Verse”
was edited, and Miss Lowell is, therefore, represented by a lyric in her earlier and less characteristic manner. Her volumes in their order are: ”A Dome of Many-Coloured Gla.s.s”, 1912; ”Sword Blades and Poppy Seed”, 1914; ”Men, Women, and Ghosts”, 1916.
Miss Lowell is also the editor of ”Some Imagist Poets”, 1915; ”Some Imagist Poets”, 1916; and ”Some Imagist Poets”, 1917, all of which contain a group of her own poems.
MacKaye, Percy. [1875-1956] (2) Born at New York City, March 16, 1875. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Leipzig. He has written many poetic dramas and several volumes of lyric verse. Among the best known of his dramas are: ”The Canterbury Pilgrims”, 1903; ”Fenris, the Wolf”, 1905; ”Jeanne d'Arc”, 1906; ”Sappho and Phaon”, 1907; and ”Caliban: A Masque”, 1916. He is also the author of several prose dramas which have been successfully produced.
In non-dramatic poetry his most representative volumes are: ”Poems”, 1909; ”Uriel, and Other Poems”, 1912; ”The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems”, ”The Present Hour”, 1915.
Markham, Edwin. [1852-1940] (4) Born at Oregon City, Oregon, April 23, 1852. Removed at an early age to California, where his childhood was spent upon a ranch in herding sheep and riding the ranges after the cattle.
Later, when the cattle ranges turned into farms, he worked in the fields and in autumn joined the threshers on their route from farm to farm.
During his boyhood he attended school but three months in the year, but later studied at San Jose Normal School and the University of California.
His first books were earned, when a lad on the ranch, by ploughing a twenty-acre lot at a dollar an acre and investing the entire sum in the works of the great poets. Thereafter, when he rode the ranges, he balanced his saddle bags with Keats and Sh.e.l.ley. It was, indeed, largely due to the democracy of Sh.e.l.ley, coupled with his own early experiences, that his genius took the social bent which distinguishes it. After leaving the University, Mr. Markham became a teacher in California and was princ.i.p.al and superintendent of several schools until 1899, when he sprang suddenly into fame by the publication in the ”San Francisco Examiner” of his poem ”The Man With the Hoe”. This poem, crystallizing as it did the spirit of the time, and emphasizing one's obligation to Society, became the impulse of the whole social movement in poetry, a movement which largely prevailed during the early years of the twentieth century.
After the great success of ”The Man With the Hoe”, Mr. Markham removed from California to New York City, where he has since been engaged in literary work. His volumes of poetry in their order are: ”The Man With the Hoe, and Other Poems”, 1899; ”Lincoln, and Other Poems”, 1901; ”The Shoes of Happiness”, 1915.
Mifflin, Lloyd. [1846-1921] (2) Born at Columbia, Pennsylvania, September 15, 1846. He was educated at Was.h.i.+ngton Cla.s.sical Inst.i.tute and studied art abroad.
His chief work in poetry has been in the sonnet form, of which he has exceptional mastery. His volumes are: ”The Hills”, 1896; ”At the Gates of Song”, 1897; ”The Slopes of Helicon”, 1898; ”The Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets”, 1900; ”Castilian Days”, 1903; ”Collected Sonnets”, 1905; ”My Lady of Dream”, 1906; and ”Toward the Uplands”, 1908.
Millay, Edna St. Vincent. [1892-1950] (1) Born at Camden, Maine. Educated at Va.s.sar College. Before entering college, however, when she was but nineteen years of age, she wrote the poem ”Renascence”, which was entered in the prize contest of ”The Lyric Year”.
The poem shows remarkable imagination and a poetic gift of a high order.
Miss Millay has not yet issued a volume of verse.
Moody, William Vaughn. [1869-1910] (3) Born at Spencer, Indiana, July 8, 1869. Educated at Riverside Academy, New York, and at Harvard. In 1895 he became a.s.sistant Professor of English in the University of Chicago, where he remained until 1903.
His period of teaching, however, was relieved by several trips abroad, on one of which he visited Greece and re-read the entire body of Greek tragedy with the background of the scenes which produced it. The Greek influence, dominant in his work, reaches its finest expression in ”The Fire-Bringer”, a poetic drama of great beauty and philosophical depth.
This drama is one of a trilogy of which it is the first member, the second being ”The Masque of Judgment”, and the third, ”The Death of Eve”.
The last was in process of writing at Mr. Moody's death and only fragments of it have been published. This trilogy, profound in its spiritual meaning and artistic in execution, would alone be sufficient to place Moody among the major poets had he not left us a body of lyric poetry of equal distinction.
Moody first attracted wide attention by ”An Ode in Time of Hesitation”, written in relation to the annexation of the Philippine Islands by the United States. In addition to this he has left us several poems notable for their social vision, particularly ”Gloucester Moors”.
In the songs of ”The Fire-Bringer”, however, we have his truest lyric offering, and in ”The Daguerreotype”, that poignant and beautiful poem to his mother. Moody died at Colorado Springs on October 17, 1910.
His work has been collected into two volumes, ”The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody”, 1912.
Neihardt, John G. [1881-1973] (2) Born at Sharpsburg, Illinois, January 8, 1881. Removed in his early boyhood to Bancroft, Nebraska, his present home. He has made a special study of the pioneer life of the West and has also lived for a time among the Omaha Indians to study them. His work has virility and imagination and reflects the life which inspired it. His books of verse are: ”A Bundle of Myrrh”, 1908; ”Man-Song”, 1909; ”The Stranger at the Gate”, 1912; ”The Song of Hugh Gla.s.s”, 1915; and ”The Quest”, 1916.
Norton, Grace Fallow. [1876-?] (1) Born at Northfield, Minnesota, October 29, 1876. She is the author of ”The Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph's”, 1912; ”The Sister of the Wind”, 1914; ”Roads”, 1915; ”What is Your Legion?”, 1916.
O'Hara, John Myers. [1870-1944] (2) Author of ”Songs of the Open”, 1909; ”The Poems of Sappho: An Interpretative Rendition into English”, 1910; ”Pagan Sonnets”, 1910; ”The Ebon Muse”, 1914; ”Manhattan”, 1915. Mr. O'Hara's rendition of ”Sappho”
is one of the finest in English literature.
O Sheel, Shaemas. [1886-1954] (2)