Alan Seeger

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Alan Seeger in his Foreign Legion uniform

Alan Seeger (born June 22, 1888 in New York City , USA , † July 4, 1916 in Belloy-en-Santerre , France ) was an American poet .

Life

Alan Seeger came as the son of the entrepreneur Charles Seeger sen. and his wife Elsie Simmons Adams (* 1861) in New York City. When he was a year old, the family settled in Staten Island . In 1898 she returned to New York City and moved to Mexico City in 1900 . The older brother Charles Seeger was born there in 1886 .

In 1902, Alan Seeger moved into the private Hackley School in Tarrytown (New York) . A childhood scarlet fever disease had weakened his health and it was considered unfavorable to stay at high altitudes in Mexico. He spent the school holidays in New Hampshire and then even a full year with the family of a tutor in southern California. After another year at Hackley, he became a Harvard student in 1906 and published the Harvard Monthly newspaper. From 1910 he lived in Greenwich Village for two years and then moved to Paris , where he enjoyed the bohemian life in the Latin Quarter .

Three weeks after the beginning of World War I , he joined the Foreign Legion on August 24, 1914 and was transferred to the front in October. In September 1915 he took part in the autumn battle in Champagne . He then went to the hospital with severe bronchitis and then went on vacation to Biarritz and Paris for two months. He returned to the front on May 16, 1916 and died seven weeks later in the Battle of the Somme when attacking a German position in Belloy-en-Santerre. Posthumously, he received the Croix de guerre and Médaille Militaire medals of merit .

plant

Alan Seeger, 22, during his time as a Harvard student

Seeger's poems were published posthumously in 1917 under the title Poems , including his best-known poem I Have a Rendezvous with Death , which deals with the recurring theme of his work, the desire for an early and glorious death. In addition to a biography of Seeger, the detailed foreword by William Archer also offers excerpts from his letters.

Seeger's Harvard fellow student T. S. Eliot wrote about poems in the London literary magazine The Egoist :

“Seeger was serious about his work and spent pains over it. The work is well done, and so much out of date as to be almost a positive quality. It is high-flown, heavily decorated and solemn, but its solemnity is thorough going, not a mere literary formality. Alan Seeger, as one who knew him can attest, lived his whole life on this plane, with impeccable poetic dignity; everything about him was in keeping. "

- TS Eliot : The Egoist

Pop culture references

In the action film In the Line of Fire by director Wolfgang Petersen , Mitch Leary, played by John Malkovich , quotes "I Have a Rendezvous with Death". In this favorite poem of John F. Kennedy , the title of the German documentary refers Rendezvous with Death: Why John F. Kennedy had to die .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Charles Seeger became a musicologist and father of folk musician Pete Seeger in his first marriage and father of songwriter Peggy Seeger in his second marriage to Ruth Crawford Seeger .
  2. ↑ http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/alan_seeger/biography
  3. ↑ http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/Seeger.html

Web links

Commons : Alan Seeger  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Seeger, Alan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , United States
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1916
Place of death Belloy-en-Santerre , France