Alan Seeger (22 June 1888 – 4 July 1916) was an American
war poet
A war poet is a poet who participates in a war and writes about their experiences, or a non-combatant who writes poems about war. While the term is applied especially to those who served during the First World War, the term can be applied to a p ...
who fought and died in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
during the
Battle of the Somme, serving in the
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, Armoured Cavalry Arm, cavalry, Military engineering, engineers, Airborne forces, airborne troops. It was created ...
. Seeger was the brother of
Charles Seeger
Charles Louis Seeger Jr. (December 14, 1886 – February 7, 1979) was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger (b. 1935), and Mike Seeger ( ...
, a noted American pacifist and musicologist and the uncle of folk musicians,
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
,
Peggy Seeger
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
First American period
Seeger's father ...
, and
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger (August 15, 1933August 7, 2009) was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, a ...
. He is best known for the poem "
I Have a Rendezvous with Death", a favorite of President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
.
A statue representing him is on the monument in the
Place des États-Unis
The Place des États-Unis (; "United States Square") is a public space in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, about 500 m south of the Place de l'Étoile and the Arc de Triomphe.
It consists of a plaza, approximately long and wide, tre ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, honoring fallen Americans who volunteered for France during the war. Seeger is sometimes called the "American
Rupert Brooke".
Early life
Seeger was born on June 22, 1888, in New York City.
According to Alan's nephew, folk singer
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, the Seeger family was "enormously Christian, in the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
,
Calvinist
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
New England tradition." In practice, though, Alan's immediate family lived within the precepts of the evolution of Calvinism into Unitarianism. His parents were married in the Unitarian Church,
and Alan and his brother, Charles, would receive education in schools based in Unitarianism: the Horace Mann school in Manhattan, the Hackley School in Tarrytown and Harvard University. The family traced their American heritage to the 18th century. A paternal ancestor, Karl Ludwig Seeger, a doctor from
Württemberg
Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart.
Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...
, Germany, emigrated to America after the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
and married into the old New England family of Parsons in the 1780s.
Alan's father,
Charles Seeger, Sr., would become an influential actor in the late 19th century development of Mexico and its relationship with the United States through publishing, infrastructure development, and sugar refining. Alan's first years included a brief time spent in Mexico City before the family would return to live on
Staten Island, where his sister Elizabeth (Elsie) was born. Elizabeth became an author and New York City educator. Alan's older brother
Charles Seeger, Jr. became a noted musicologist, and the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger,
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger (August 15, 1933August 7, 2009) was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, a ...
, and
Peggy Seeger
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
First American period
Seeger's father ...
.
Seeger's family was well-to-do, and Charles, Sr. was a figure in international commerce throughout his life. In 1898, the family moved from Staten Island to an apartment near Central Park. In 1900, Charles' business interests took the family back to Mexico City where he took a role in the development of the city's transportation infrastructure and become a merchant of electric automobiles.
Young Alan's short time in Mexico provides material for his later, and longest, poem, "The Deserted Garden". In 1902, Seeger left Mexico City with his brother to attend
Hackley School
Hackley School is a private college preparatory school located in Tarrytown, New York, and is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. Founded in 1899 by a wealthy philanthropist, Frances Hackley, Hackley was intended to be a Unitarian al ...
in Tarrytown, New York, after which he attended Harvard University.
His Harvard class of 1910 included the poet
T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...
.
During Seeger's first few years at Harvard, he was primarily fixated on intellectual pursuits and did not have a significant social life. However, as an upperclassman and editor at ''
The Harvard Monthly'', he found a group of friends that shared his
aesthete
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be pr ...
sensibilities, including
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the te ...
and
John Reed.
With Lippmann, he founded a
Socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
club at Harvard to protest anti-labor policies at the university,
though Socialist precepts were not otherwise of importance in Seeger's history.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Seeger returned to Manhattan to live primarily in a boardinghouse at 61 Washington Square South that came to be known variously as The Alan Seeger House or House of Genius. Run by the Swiss emigre Catherine Branchard, its residents at one time or another included
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...
,
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...
,
Frank Norris
Benjamin Franklin Norris Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American journalist and novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include '' McTeague: A Story of San ...
,
Robert Moses,
Sydney Porter
William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. His works include "The Gift of the M ...
(O'Henry), John Reed, and other figures of American literature.
While in Greenwich Village, he attended soirées at the Petitpas' Restaurant, where the artist and sage
John Butler Yeats
John Butler Yeats (16 March 1839 – 3 February 1922) was an Irish people, Irish artist and the father of W. B. Yeats, Lily Yeats, Elizabeth Yeats, Elizabeth Corbett "Lolly" Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats. The National Gallery of Ireland holds a nu ...
, father of the poet
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
, held court. After two years, Seeger left Greenwich Village to move to Paris, where he lived in the
Latin Quarter
The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne.
Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistro ...
and continued to pursue a
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
lifestyle.
Military service and writing
Seeger was living on Rue du Sommerard in Paris in 1914, when
war was declared between France and Germany. He quickly volunteered to fight as a member of the
Foreign Legion in the
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...
, stating that he was motivated by his love for France and his belief in the
Allies. For Seeger, fighting for the Allies was a moral imperative; in his poem "A Message to America," he spoke out against what he saw as America's moral failure to join the war.
During the two years he fought in the French Foreign Legion, Seeger wrote regular dispatches to the ''
New York Sun
''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...
'', and the essay "As A Soldier Thinks of War" for Walter Lippman's fledgling magazine, ''The New Republic'' posited that though war was lamentable and the cause of death, this one was inevitable and necessary. For the most part, his poetry of that time was not well known and would not become so until after his death.
His work was heavily influenced by the
Romantic school
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, and by the precepts of chivalry and medieval ethos of the knight. As the war progressed, the theme of death grew stronger in his poetry, culminating in what became his most famous poem, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."
Death and aftermath
![Alan seeger foreign legion](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Alan_seeger_foreign_legion.jpg)
In the winter of 1916, he developed
bronchitis
Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (large and medium-sized airways) in the lungs that causes coughing. Bronchitis usually begins as an infection in the nose, ears, throat, or sinuses. The infection then makes its way down to the bronchi. ...
and spent several months recovering before he returned to the battlefront.
He was
killed in action in 1916, during a French attack against the
Imperial German Army at
Belloy-en-Santerre
Belloy-en-Santerre (, literally ''Belloy in Santerre'') is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.
Geography
The commune is situated on the D79 road, about from the junction of the A1 autoroute and the N29, s ...
, during the
Battle of the Somme.
His fellow legionnaire, Rif Baer, later described his last moments: "His tall silhouette stood out on the green of the cornfield. He was the tallest man in his section. His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared and that was the last time I saw my friend."
After being mortally wounded in
no man's land, Seeger cheered on the passing soldiers of the Legion before he finally died from his injuries. According to one account, knowing he was mortally wounded, he killed himself with a gunshot to the head.
Seeger had been falsely reported dead after the
Battle of Champagne in October 1915, in which he had fought.
The news of his actual death was met with public mourning in both America and France.
After the USA entered World War I, ''Poems'', a posthumously published collection of Seeger's war poetry, sold out six editions in a year.
The poet
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet and playwright. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three occasions and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
Early life
Robin ...
, who had described Seeger as "the
Hedonist
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...
" after meeting him in 1911, suggested that it might be best that he had died in the war, "for I don’t believe that he would ever have come anywhere near to fitting himself into this interesting but sometimes unfittable world."
It is assumed, and officially stated, that Seeger's bones rest with other dead of the Belloy-en-Santerre battle in ossuary No. 1 of the French National Cemetery in
Lihons
Lihons is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.
Geography
Lihons is situated east of Amiens, on the D337 road
Population
Places of interest
The tomb of Prince Murat.
Louis Marie Joachim Napoléon Michel ...
. After his death, Seeger's parents donated a bell to a local church and planted trees in his honor. Both of their contributions to Belloy-en-Santerre were destroyed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
,
though the remains of the bell were combined with other metals into a new church bell, and one of the apple trees was believed to be still alive behind the village hall at Belloy en Santerre as of 2016.
Poetry
![Rendezvous with death](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Rendezvous_with_death.JPG)
Seeger's poetry was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in December 1916 with a 46-page introduction by William Archer. ''Poems'', a collection of his works, was relatively unsuccessful, due, according to Eric Homberger, to its lofty idealism and language, qualities out of fashion in the early decades of the 20th century.
''Poems'' was reviewed in ''
The Egoist
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', where T.S. Eliot stated:
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.
His most famous poem, "
I Have a Rendezvous with Death", is believed to have been completed during a winter 1916 bivouac at Crevecoeur,
and was published posthumously.
It begins,
:I have a rendezvous with Death
:At some disputed barricade,
:When Spring comes back with rustling shade
:And apple-blossoms fill the air—
:I have a rendezvous with Death
:When Springs brings back blue days and fair.
A recurrent theme in both his poetic works and his personal writings was his desire for his life to end gloriously at an early age.
According to the ''New York Times'', "President Kennedy had loved the poem so much that his wife
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis">Jacqueline
Jacqueline may refer to:
People
* Jacqueline (given name), including a list of people with the name
* Jacqueline Moore (born 1964), ring name "Jacqueline", American professional wrestler
Arts and entertainment
* ''Jacqueline'' (1923 film), ...
memorized it at his request." The poem continues to resonate today and was quoted by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, in a speech to the U.S. Congress in April 2018.
Memorials and legacy
In 1919, Seeger's father Charles, while living in Paris, determined to devote royalties received for Poems and for a subsequent Letters and Diary, published in 1917, to the founding of what became the American Library in Paris. Charles became its first board chairman.
On 4 July 1923, the President of the French Council of State
A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...
, Raymond Poincaré, dedicated a monument in the Place des États-Unis
The Place des États-Unis (; "United States Square") is a public space in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, about 500 m south of the Place de l'Étoile and the Arc de Triomphe.
It consists of a plaza, approximately long and wide, tre ...
to the Americans who had volunteered to fight in World War I in the service of France. The monument, in the form of a bronze statue on a plinth, executed by Jean Boucher, had been financed through a public subscription.
Boucher had used a photograph of Seeger as his inspiration, and Seeger's name can be found, among those of 23 others who had fallen in the ranks of the Foreign Legion in the French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...
on the back of the plinth. Also, on either side of the base of the statue, are two excerpts from Seeger's "Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France", a poem written shortly before his death on 4 July 1916. Seeger intended that his words should be read in Paris on 30 May of that year, at an observance of the American holiday, Decoration Day (later known as Memorial Day):
They did not pursue worldly rewards; they wanted nothing more than to live without regret, brothers pledged to the honor implicit in living one's own life and dying one's own death. Hail, brothers! Goodbye to you, the exalted dead! To you, we owe two debts of gratitude forever: the glory of having died for France, and the homage due to you in our memories.
On July 3 and 4, 2016, the centennial of Seeger's death was memorialized in two separate ceremonies at the monument at Place Des États-Unis, and at Belloy-en-Santerre, where 500 people from the US, France, Germany and Spain gathered to commemorate his role in the liberation of the village, as well as those of German poet Reinhard Sorge
Reinhard Sorge (29 January 1892, Berlin, German Empire – 20 July 1916, Ablaincourt, France) was a German dramatist and poet. He is best known for writing the Expressionist play '' The Beggar'' (''Der Bettler''), which won the Kleist Pr ...
and Catalan poet Camil Campanya, also associated with the battle.
In 1921, the Alan Seeger Natural Area
Alan Seeger Natural Area is located in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, United States, approximately nine miles south of Boalsburg, within Rothrock State Forest in the Appalachian Mountains. It is traversed by the long-distance Standing Stone Tr ...
, in central Pennsylvania, was named by folklorist, writer and conservationist Colonel Henry Shoemaker, who named another portion of the forest after the war poet Joyce Kilmer. In the same year, the "Alan Seeger Tree" was planted and dedicated in Washington Square Park before the Branchard boarding house in an event led by poet/historian Walter Adolphe Roberts. The tree disappeared at some point probably in the mid-century.
The liberty ship
Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Ma ...
SS ''Alan Seeger'', a tanker, was launched by the California Shipbuilding Corp 5 October 1943, during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
Author Chris Dickon wrote what is widely considered the definitive biography of Seeger in 2017,
A Rendezvous with Death: Alan Seeger in Poetry, at War
'. Dickon spoke about Seeger and his work at the American Library, Paris, shortly after the publication of his book.
Also in 2017, the oratori
Alan Seeger: Instrument of Destiny
by American composer Patrick Zimmerli was premiered at the Cathédrale Saint Louis des Invalides in Paris, followed by an American premier at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York in 2019.
On 9 November 2018, an opinion commentary by Aaron Schnoor in ''The Wall Street Journal'' honored the poetry of World War I, including Seeger's poem "I Have a Rendezvous With Death".
See also
*List of Liberty ships (A–F)
This section of List of Liberty ships is a sortable list of Liberty ships—cargo ships built in the United States during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that las ...
References
Michael Hill, War Poet: The Life of Alan Seeger and His Rendezvous With Death (2019)
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seeger, Alan
1888 births
1916 deaths
20th-century American poets
Harvard University alumni
Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion
French military personnel killed in World War I
People from Staten Island
American World War I poets
20th-century American male writers
American male poets
Seeger family
Hackley School alumni
American people of German descent
American military personnel killed in World War I
Lost Generation writers