Morris Gilbert Bishop (April 15, 1893 – November 20, 1973) was an American scholar who wrote numerous books onRomance history, literature, and biography. His work also extended toNorth American exploration and beyond.
Orphaned at 12, he was brought up inNew York state andOntario, wrote and published precociously, and enteredCornell University in 1910. Other than from 1914 to 1921 and 1942 to 1945, Bishop remained at Cornell for his entire working life and into retirement, at the age of 77 even fending off a demonstrator with aceremonial mace.
At its core Bishop's work coveredPascal,Petrarch,Ronsard,La Rochefoucauld,Cabeza de Vaca, andChamplain—embracing literature in Italian, Spanish, Latin, and particularly French. He also worked as a translator and anthologist. Bishop was concerned that his books should be lively and engaging yet be soundly based on fact; they were widely praised for achieving these goals, but were sometimes criticized for falling short.
Bishop was a prolific contributor of light verse and short prose pieces to the popular magazines of the day. His light verse was praised by fellow poets such asRichard Armour,David McCord, andLouis Untermeyer.
At the time of Morris Bishop's birth his father, Edwin Rubergall Bishop, a Canadian physician, was working atWillard Asylum for the Chronic Insane inWillard, New York; Morris was actually born in the hospital.[i] His mother, Bessie E. Gilbert, died two years later, and Morris and his elder brother Edwin were sent to live with their Canadian grandparents inBrantford, Ontario. His father remarried, and while he was working inGeneva, New York, the boys were sent to live with father and stepmother. Morris was then aged eight. Both father and stepmother died (fromtuberculosis) by the time he was 11, so the brothers were sent to live with their mother's family inYonkers, New York.[1]: 21 [2]
Bishop started writing young: his earliest known publication was inSt. Nicholas, when he was 10.[3][4][ii] He graduated fromYonkers High School in 1910.[5]
Bishop attendedCornell University from 1910 to 1913, earning anA.B. degree,[6] and also Cornell's Morrison Poetry Prize in 1913[7] (for a poem Bishop later called "hellishly serious"[8]) and anA.M. degree in 1914.[5][iii] After that he sold textbooks forGinn & Co, joined theUS Cavalry (and unhappily served underPershing in the "punitive expedition" in Mexico), was a first lieutenant in theUS Infantry inWorld War I[6] and a member of theAmerican Relief Administration mission to Finland in 1919,[10][11] and worked as a copywriter in a New York advertising agency, the Harry Porter Company, for a year. He returned to Cornell to begin teaching French and Italian in 1921 and to earn aPhD in 1926;[5][6][8] his thesis was on the plays ofJules Lemaître.[9]: 6 [iv] He was associated with Cornell for the whole of his adult life—not only as an alumnus but as an academic (in 1938 being named Kappa Alpha Professor of Romance Literature[2]) and University Historian.[8]
Bishop worked for theUS Office of War Information in New York and London from 1942 to 1944,[10] and with theSHAEFPsychological Warfare Division from 1944 to 1945.[10][11][v]
After the war Bishop returned to Cornell. In 1962 he wroteA History of Cornell, its standard history. The same year he was presented with afestschrift,Studies in Seventeenth-Century French Literature,[vi] described in a review as questioning the notion of the "baroque" but showing "a continuing vitality" in its study.[12]
Bishop was a visiting professor at theUniversity of Athens (with aFulbright teaching fellowship) in 1951,[3][13] atWells College from 1962 to 1963,[3][14] and atRice University in spring 1966.[15] In 1964, he was president of theModern Language Association.[3][16]
After retirement from Cornell in 1960, Bishop served as itsmarshal, officiating at graduations. During the 1970 ceremony (when he was 77), he used the universitymace to fend off a graduate who was trying to seize the microphone.[3][4][17] "The jab was given in typical Bishop style: with spontaneity, grace and effectiveness," commented the president,Dale R. Corson.[3][vii]
"[Bishop's] scholarly forte was biography":[2] he wrote biographies ofPascal,Petrarch,Ronsard,La Rochefoucauld,Cabeza de Vaca,Champlain, andSt. Francis. Bishop was aware that academic biographies made only a minor impact, and instead wrote for a wide readership: speaking to an audience of writers, he suggested that would-be biographers consider writing "biofiction", which "may be more bio than fiction, or more fiction than bio", but either way "is based solidly on fact", though permitting "a good deal of invention, a good deal of decoration".[18]
HisSurvey of French Literature, first published in 1955, was for many years a standard textbook (revised editions were published in 1965 and, posthumously, in 2005). During the late 1950s and early 1960s his reviews of books on historical topics often appeared inThe New York Times. As of 2023[update], his 1968 history of theMiddle Ages is still in print.[19] He was a frequent contributor of historical articles toAmerican Heritage and also wrote a miscellany of lighter material, including the pseudonymous comic mysteryThe Widening Stain and humorous verse and prose pieces published by a variety of magazines.[20] His entry inAmerican National Biography reads:
Bishop's more than 400 publications are noteworthy not only by reason of their volume and their varied subject matter but also because of their charming style and formidable erudition. Bishop was fluent in German, French, Spanish, Swedish, modern Greek, and Latin; his command of the entire breadth of literature in the romance languages was exceptional. His scrupulous accuracy and keen insight gave substance not only to his core studies, those dealing with French language and civilization, but also to those in areas with which he was less familiar.[2][viii]
On working in those areas of relative unfamiliarity, Bishop said:
I get bored by doing the same thing over. No, it's not a question of being the "well-rounded" man, but I simply wish to satisfy my curiosity about one thing and then go on to another.[21]: S‑8
Bishop's papers are held atCornell University Library's Special Collections.[22][23]
The review of Bishop's bookPascal: The Life of Genius (1936) in theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch called it "the first complete description of Pascal as man and as historical figure to appear in English", and praised it highly, particularly for its lively description ofthe dispute between theJesuits andPort-Royal.[24] TheNew York Times review described it as "a solid, comprehensive and valuable addition to the library" with "a heroic attempt to explain the achievements of Pascal as a scientist, philosopher and theologian", and praised Bishop's enthusiasm in writing aboutPascal.[25]
The Romance studies scholarArthur Livingston admired the book as a literary biography, particularly for the way in which Bishop "follows the motive of the 'child prodigy' through the varied influences of that fact in Pascal's life upon his temperament, his moral outlook and the various episodes of his career"—a viewpoint Livingston thought led to perceptiveness and fairness. But Livingston criticized what he saw as Bishop's unnecessary dalliance with "a rather timid Freudianism". He claimed that Pascal evolved "[from] a prig into a charlatan", that his learning is obsolete, and "It is in recovering Pascal the poet and artist from the dross of his biography and his thought that Professor Bishop's criticism is perhaps least effective". Yet Livingston concluded by praising the book as suggestive, comprehensive, and thorough.[26]
The reviewer forIsis found that Bishop "succeeds in painting an objective as well as an enthusiastic picture";[27] for the reviewer forThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, "Dr. Bishop has written a scholarly and a brilliantly written book, one which every admirer of Pascal will read with pleasure."[28] The review inPhilosophy called the book an "altogether admirable biography", both critical and sympathetic;[29] the reviewer forThe Journal of Philosophy thought it should appeal to philosophers as "a well-organized collection of Pascaliana", commenting that "It is unfortunate that [Bishop's] stylistic exuberance sometimes gets the better of him, but for the most part he keeps it under control."[30]
Bishop'sBlaise Pascal (a 1966 mass-market paperback) followed a brief description of Pascal's life with a selection of his writings.[31]
Invited to name the outstanding book of the period 1931 to 1961, Bishop named his ownPascal: The Life of Genius, saying that its preparation had taught him much. "There is a useful lesson here: if you want to find out about something of which you know nothing, write a book about it."[32]
ReviewingLove Rimes of Petrarch (1932),Romeyn Berry enjoyed the opportunityPetrarch gave Bishop to write lyrical poetry: though unable to read the Italian, Berry thought it "safe to assume that in such a satisfying bit of metrical translation there must be much of both [Petrarch and Bishop]".[33]
The review inSaturday Review of Literature ofPetrarch and His World (1963) said that "Bishop's sometimes iconoclastic approach distinguishes his magnificent new biography of Petrarch from the hero-worshipping books about the poet".[34] The review inItalica praised the book both as "a scholarly work cleverly concealed behind a sophisticated, witty, and often ironic prose", and for providing "a complete picture of Petrarch's long life, the many aspects of his character, and a scholarly analysis of the wide range of his writings".[35] That inThe Historian noted that half of the book was derived from a series of lectures ("the Patten Lectures at Indiana University during the Spring of 1962"), resulting in a style more conversational than would normally be expected: in general a plus, but occasionally to jarring effect.[36] The Shakespeare scholarM. C. Bradbrook found the biography "engaging".[37] The reviewer for theCanadian Journal of History described the book as "a gracefully written, very readable biography". In places its inferences are debatable, he added, but "some of Bishop's judgements are devastatingly perceptive". He concluded, "In Bishop's hands, Petrarch should come alive for all readers."[38] The review inRenaissance News praised Bishop for "[having] managed to find a human being at the heart of [the superabundance of Petrarch's life] and to treat him kindly as well as sanely", and praised the book for its informativeness and interest and the gracefulness of its translations.[39]The New York Times' regular book reviewerOrville Prescott described the book as "scholarly and yet lively" with "many smoothly flowing translations", yet suggested that it might be found too long to be read cover to cover.[40] The reviewer forSpeculum conceded that the book had some brilliant ingredients but compared it unfavourably with one by the Petrarch specialist Ernest H. Wilkins,[ix] which was more painstaking, "equally vivid and even more so", and "emerges with something solid"; whereas Bishop failed to provide a coherent picture of Petrarch or even to give the impression that he possessed one.[41]
Bishop translated Petrarch's letters (selected from both theFamiliares and theSeniles, and elsewhere) from Latin forLetters from Petrarch (1966).Mark Musa, a scholar of Italian literature, thought it an "elegant" translation—one that "captured the spirit and tone of the poet's Latin letters".[42] The review forRenaissance Quarterly, whose author estimated that the content represented "about one tenth" of Petrarch's surviving letters, started:
This is a book for students of comparative literature who do not read Latin (if there are any). It is also for the undergraduate member of Renaissance literature or Renaissance history courses. It is most definitely for the general reader, who will probably not read it.[43]
The review continued by saying that Bishop's book complementedJames Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe'sPetrarch the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898), the latter remaining "most valuable" despite its stilted translations. The review forThe Modern Language Journal (MLJ) regretted abridgements and liberties with the translations, but concluded by praising the book as "a worthy effort to bring material not easily accessible to the attention of the cultured laymen for whom it is intended. The translation is eminently readable and is distinguished by the elegance which we have come to expect of Professor Bishop. . . ."[44] The reviews in both theRenaissance Quarterly andMLJ noted that the letters seemed to have been selected to fit Bishop's interests, or those of the educated lay reader, rather than to represent a more rounded picture of Petrarch's concerns.
In a review of Bishop'sRonsard: Prince of Poets (1940), the French literature scholarJustin O'Brien pointed out that this book—a combination of a biography and critical study ofRonsard and a collection of translations—"is not . . . for specialists. It is written rather for you and me." O'Brien particularly praised Bishop's verse translations of "all of the ten or a dozen deathless lyrics on which Ronsard's fame principally rests, and many other poems as well". He noted how Bishop made Ronsard not just a historical figure but a poet for the mid-20th century.[45]
A second French literature scholar,H. W. Lawton, wrote that Bishop "has succeeded . . . in enlivening and making real the successive stages of Ronsard's development. As a work of literary criticism, the book is less satisfactory. . . ." He concluded that the book "may help some beginner to look on the right side of Ronsard's poetry and serve as an antidote to too much dead-handed analysis".[46]
The reviewer forThought found the biography one-sided and the book unscholarly as a whole, but had high praise for the translations.[47] The reviewer forModern Language Notes found various points on which to disagree with Bishop, but nevertheless concluded that this "work of vulgarization" was "an entertaining and useful book".[48]
In a review of Bishop's 1951 bookThe Life and Adventures of La Rochefoucauld, the literary criticF. W. Dupee held thatLa Rochefoucauld'sMaxims are "the essentially impersonal product of a definite method", [whichLouis Kronenberger] 'defined as a scientific cynicism . . . which tested vanity in a test-tube'"—and that Bishop, who had little regard for the maxims, misunderstood them. But Dupee nevertheless praised the "engaging detail" of the book, and particularly its portrayal of La Rochefoucauld's final years.[49]
Two other reviewers praised the book for the inferences it draws from the maxims.[50][51]
Bishop's two-volume anthology of French texts,A Survey of French Literature (1955), was praised inThe French Review for its selection and for the short piece Bishop writes about each author, in which he "displays a great gift for getting at essentials . . . His comments are invariably apt [and designed] as suggestions or challenges" for the student reader.[52]
The 1965 revised edition made changes to the selections and slightly augmented the annotations. Despite quibbles with certain points, the reviewer forThe Modern Language Journal wrote that it had recently had only one significant rival and that the newly revised work was "the anthology in my opinion".[53]
The third edition (2005–2006), revised by Kenneth T. Rivers and in five volumes, again changed the selections and increased the annotations.[54][55] A review of the new volume on the 18th century found Bishop's original critical commentary "precise, concise, and lively", though in some places old-fashioned.[56]
Bishop's 1950 translation ofMolière's playThe Would-Be Invalid was later staged. A reviewer of a performance in 2003 found the text "an odd combination of overly earnest speeches and jangling contemporary references".[57]
Eight Plays by Molière in Bishop's translation—The Precious Damsels,The School for Wives,The Critique of The School for Wives [de;fr;ja;ru],The Versailles Impromptu [de;es;fr;hy;it;ja;ru],Tartuffe,The Misanthrope,The Physician in Spite of Himself,The Would-Be Gentleman—appeared as a volume of theModern Library in 1957. The reviewer forThe French Review found the translations of Molière "brilliant", and praised Bishop's short introduction to each play.[58] The reviewer forThe Modern Language Journal found "infrequent disappointments" with Bishop's translations, but supposed that the book would be "genuinely useful".[59][x]
Before Bishop's translations of Molière into English, those most commonly used had been the "really bad" Modern Library selection byHenri van Laun, who according to the French literature scholarDonald Frame "had a genuine talent for dullness". Together with the poetRichard Wilbur's rhymed translation ofMisanthrope, Bishop's nine unrhymed translations appeared to Frame, on their publication in the 1950s, as great improvements. But Frame, who would later translate Molière himself, preferred rhyme for translating Molière, and Wilbur's translation to Bishop's, and was "puzzled that Morris Bishop, a connoisseur of Molière and superb comic poet (Spilt Milk, 'Ozymandias Revisited'), did not put him into rhyme".[60]
From 1970 to 1971 Bishop published a series of four "storybooks" (each illustrated with line drawings by his wife,Alison Mason Kingsbury).A Classical Storybook offered stories in lively English translation (often Bishop's own) from Greek and Latin. A review inGreece & Rome said: "Certainly it is not elementary . . . (although children will read it with avidity)."[61] A review inThe Classical Outlook praised the variety of the content and the vividness of the picture it provided.[62]
A review inThe American Scholar had high praise forA Medieval Storybook: "[T]he tales share that glorious sense of improbability that is the very essence of a good storybook"; and "The only possible basis for selection of stories for a collection of this sort is the personal taste of the author, and Mr. Bishop's choice is splendid." But the claims on the jacket that the stories "vary widely in theme and their characters represent every class of medieval society . . . [and that] Mr. Bishop's tales vividly illustrate medieval life and thought" struck the reviewer as "quite unjustified, as Mr. Bishop knows very well". The reviewer regretted both the lack of an effort to avoid misinterpretation and Bishop's use of "Wardour-Street English".[63]
Much ofA Renaissance Storybook consisted of translations by Bishop from the Italian.[64]A Romantic Storybook has been called "a delightful collection".[65]
Bishop's 1929 edition ofVoltaire'sCandide and Other Philosophical Tales presentedCandide,Le Monde comme il va [eo;fa;fr],L'Histoire d'un bon bramin [br;eo;fr], andL'Ingénu with a small amount of commentary and notes.[66] A reviewer of the 1957 edition (reissued in 1962) found that the editor's introduction and notes were "enlightening and lively".[67]
The review inThe Modern Language Journal of Bishop's edition (1933) ofCasanova'sL'Évasion des Plombs first reassured readers that the book "would pass the most puritanical censorship". It praised "this virile escapade", while pointing out that, even with Bishop's footnotes, the book was for the experienced reader of French.[68]
"Le Roman de vrai amour" and "Le Pleur de sainte âme" (1958), edited by Bishop's student Arthur S. Bates, presents a pair of poems, known only from a manuscript Bishop had discovered twenty years earlier in Cornell University library,[xi] of "late medieval devotional verse inmonorimedalexandrinequatrains [that] possess the absurd but delicate charm of decadent piety". In one chapter Bishop "undertakes the unlikely task of finding sources and analogues for the content of the poems in the literary and mystical currents of the Middle Ages".[69] The reviewer forThe Modern Language Review found the chapter "interesting".[70]
Of Bishop's posthumously publishedSaint Francis of Assisi, the anonymous reviewer forKirkus Reviews wrote that:
It is not the saint that interests him but the paradoxical and eminently human man. Bishop suggests that much of Francis' celebrated asceticism derived less from his piety than from his irrepressible sense of theatrics. . . . Not the last word in scholarship, this is nonetheless a psychologically convincing portrait . . . . endearing and empathetic.[71]
A much later survey of the American reception ofFrancis of Assisi judged that "the book is derivative and generally undistinguished".[72]
Bishop also published articles on other writers: as examples,Chateaubriand[73] andDante[74] At the time of his death, he was working on a biography ofCola di Rienzo.[6][75][76]
The earliest of Bishop's biographies wasThe Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca (1933). This book onthe Spanish explorer was praised inNorth American Review.[77] The review inThe New York Times concluded: "Despite an overwhelming mass of detail and despite the fact that most of his characters are unknown to the general reader, [Bishop] has made de Vaca live; and one feels admiration and indignation, as though the issues involved were things of yesterday."[78]
Comparing the book with John Eoghan Kelly'sPedro de Alvarado Conquistator, the poetTheodore Maynard wrote that "[Bishop's] style is not distinguished, but is at least vivacious", praising the book as entertaining but regretting that Bishop "indulges his propensity for fanciful speculation".[79] The reviewer forThe Journal of Modern History found it a "highly entertaining and instructive narrative".[80] The reviews in bothThe Hispanic American Historical Review andThe Journal of Negro History pointed out various problems; yet the former concluded that the book was largely accurate as well as "delightfully written",[81] and the latter that the book was "a brilliant piece of historical research".[82]
Just six years after publication of his book, Bishop himself acknowledged the superiority of a newly published alternative, writing that Cleve Hallenbeck "has produced the best informed and best argued study of Cabeza de Vaca's route that has ever been made".[83]
More recently Bishop's book has been criticized. The authors of a larger biography of de Vaca published in 1999 give their predecessors, and particularly Bishop and Enrique Pupo-Walker, "low marks for shoddy research and implausible or plainly erroneous readings and interpretations".[84] A 2013 paper describes Bishop's book as "a breezy narrative about Cabeza de Vaca, spiced with imaginary dialogue"; saying that it "made no attempt to advance a new route interpretation. Instead, Bishop accepted the conclusions of [Harbert] Davenport and [Joseph K.] Wells set forth some fourteen years earlier".[85]
The archaeologistArthur C. Parker praised Bishop's 1948 biography of the French explorerSamuel de Champlain,Champlain: The Life of Fortitude, as "a good and straightforward account of a mighty hero [that is nevertheless] as exciting as a bit of romance literature", and for making Champlain understandable without running to excessive length.[86] InThe New York Times, the book was praised highly both byOrville Prescott ("lively and scholarly", "excellent")[87] and by John A. Krout ("spirited", "Mr. Bishop's spirited imagination evokes from the record a man whose motives are understandable and whose character shines through both failure and success").[88] The economic historianIrene Spry wrote that although Bishop told Champlain's tale "in a sometimes jarringly skittish style [the book] is based on a serious study of first-hand sources and is full both of human and geographic interest".[89] The review inQueen's Quarterly started by saying that the book "might equally well have been entitledChamplain Taken Down off His Monument and Made Human"; regretting that Canadian historians approached figures such as Champlain with humility, even servility; whereas Bishop was able to do so with "good-humoured intimacy"—the result was a "charming book".[90] Though faulting the book for fabricated conversations and minor errors, the historianE.R. Adair praised it as providing "constant interest and pleasure".[91] The historianMilo M. Quaife also criticized Bishop's exercise of his imagination, but nevertheless said that the book "will be a worthy and entertaining addition to the bookshelf of anyone who cares to read about the American past".[92] The review inThe American Historical Review described it as an "unpretentious but thoroughly informed and judicious book";[93] the psychologistElsie Murray called it "a rare blend of psychological acumen and careful scholarship".[94] The historianGrace Lee Nute was much less appreciative: "[N]o one should be misled into believing that this is a scholarly or definitive life of the great explorer, or that it adds anything of note to our knowledge of Champlain's life and achievements." She also found its written style monotonous.[95]
Bishop'sWhite Men Came to the St. Lawrence (1961) earned a dismissive mention in a survey of the literature of colonialism that classed it withLes Canadiens d'autrefois ofRobert de Roquebrune [fr] as likely to appeal to the general public and schoolchildren.[96] However, the novelistRobertson Davies greatly enjoyed the book "[a]s an introduction to the history of exploration in Canada", writing that he wished he had been present at Bishop's lectures on which it was based.[97]
Bishop'sThe Horizon Book of the Middle Ages takes its title from its American publisher's lavish periodicalHorizon. The book was published in 1968 to complementThe Horizon Book of Great Cathedrals (edited by Jay Jacobs), the pair constitutingThe Horizon History of the Medieval World. Bishop's volume was "a work of impeccable scholarship and sprightly of style".[98]
TheHorizon Book of the Middle Ages spans a millennium, from the 5th to the 16th century. "The narrative focuses on the minutiae of everyday living", and a reviewer judged that, together with the volume on cathedrals, the book would be "richly rewarding" both for those with specialist backgrounds and for "anybody with an inquiring mind".[99]
The book was later republished asThe Middle Ages,The Penguin Book of the Middle Ages, andThe Pelican Book of the Middle Ages.
Before the publication in 1962 of Bishop'sA History of Cornell, the university had just two histories:Cornell University: Founders and the Founding (1943), a highly regarded account byCarl Becker of the period before the arrival of its first students; and Waterman Thomas Hewett's ploddingCornell University: A History (1905).[8][xii]
Cornell's president,Deane Malott, named Bishop the second University Historian (after Becker) and relieved him of teaching duties for a year so he could produce a history in time for the university's centenary. Bishop completed the research for and writing of the two-volume workA History of Cornell (1962) within three or four months.[4]
Frederick Rudolph's review of the work started: "Seldom in the writing of college and university history have responsible scholarship, felicitous writing, and the warmth and wisdom that come from knowing one's subject been so happily combined"; it continued with similarly glowing commentary.[100]
The review inThe Journal of Higher Education said that: "Although written in a style to interest the general reader, the concentration inward—on the physical and educational development of the University, omitting any extended treatment of the larger social and academic context—makes it a book primarily for Cornellians." The writer regretted this, but observed that the hundredth anniversaries of a number of theland-grant universities would soon arrive and might prompt a number of similar, single-institution histories, on the bases of which more general histories could be written.[101]
History of Education Quarterly's reviewer had high praise for Bishop's portrayal of the founders,Ezra Cornell andAndrew D. White, and indeed for the book as a whole, not least for its "substantial sketches of the wider social, intellectual, and cultural contexts within which [the university's] leaders dreamed and worked".[102]
The review in the Washington, D.C.Evening Star found the history an unusually absorbing example of its genre, thanks to the distinctiveness of both the university and the author. "Prof. Bishop's sonorous almost victorian style is vividly evocative. . . . [His] account is more than even the most captious reader could ask."[103]
The first part of the work was reissued in 1967 asEarly Cornell, 1865–1900. It was reviewed inBritish Journal of Educational Studies together with Becker'sCornell University: Founders and the Founding. The reviewer wrote that Becker's work was more likely to appeal to the general reader—Bishop's book being "more reverent"—but that both constituted "a fitting tribute to a prestige institution".[104]
A History of Cornell retained its high reputation decades after it was published.[105][106]
Bishop had high regard for light verse:
The aim of poetry, or Heavy Verse, is to seek understanding in forms of beauty. The aim of light verse is to promote misunderstanding in beauty's cast-off clothes. But even misunderstanding is a kind of understanding; it is an analysis, an observation of truth, which sneaks around truth from the rear, which uncovers the lath and plaster of beauty's hinder parts.[107]
Bishop's obituary inThe New York Times describes him as "an extraordinarily gifted writer" of light verse, publishing "about fifteen poems and casuals a year in theNew Yorker" over a period of more than thirty years.[6][xiii] Bishop also published verse inThe Saturday Evening Post,[3]Archaeology,[108]Poetry, The Colonnade, The Measure,The Smart Set,Judge,Saturday Review of Literature and the pre-LuceLife.[20]
After noting how light verse had almost completely vanished from the magazines that had previously published it,David McCord (himself an exponent) wrote:
But from the twenties on down into the fifties there was Morris Bishop, the one true poet at heart who moved with almost elfin grace amid, yet superior to, the difficulties of an art traditionally chained and fettered by strict rhyme and meter.[109]: 6
Writing in 1960,Richard Armour put Bishop together withF.P.A.,Margaret Fishback,Arthur Guiterman,Samuel Hoffenstein,Ethel Jacobson,David McCord,Phyllis McGinley,Ogden Nash,Dorothy Parker,E.B. White, andJohn Updike as "the old (and middle-aged) masters of light verse" that a would-be writer of light verse should study.[110]
"How to Treat Elves",[xiv] a widely anthologized poem,[111] describes a conversation with "The wee-est little elf". The elf tells the narrator "'I dance 'n fwolic about . . . 'n scuttle about and play.'" In four stanzas he describes himself surprising butterflies, "fwightening" Mister Mole by jumping out and saying "Boo", swinging on cobwebs, and so forth. To his question "what do you think of that?", the narrator replies:
"It gives me sharp and shooting pains
To listen to such drool."
I lifted up my foot and squashed
The God damn little fool.
Alison Lurie calls the poem "a brilliant counterattack" against "a particularly cloying sort of supernatural whimsy" that was fashionable in the early 20th century.[112]
Taking up the poetR. C. Trevelyan's challenge (inThamyris, or Is There a Future for Poetry?) to write on a modern subject "and dispute Virgil's supremacy in this field", Bishop produced "Gas and Hot Air".[xv] It describes the operation of acar engine; "Vacuum pulls me; and I come! I come!" cries the gasoline, which reaches
[T]he secret bridal chamber where
The earth-born gas first comes to kiss its bride,
The heaven-born and yet inviolate air
Which is, on this year's models, purified.
"Ozymandias Revisited",[xvi] also widely anthologized,[113] reproduces the first two stanzas ofShelley's poem verbatim, but closes:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Also the names of Emory P. Gray,
Mr. and Mrs. Dukes, and Oscar Baer
Of 17 West 4th St., Oyster Bay.
Bishop's 1950 poem "Song of the Pop-Bottlers",[xvii] again widely anthologized,[114] starts:
Pop bottles pop-bottles
In pop shops;
The pop-bottles Pop bottles
Poor Pop drops.
It is described as among "poems to be said as fast as possible".[115]
One stanza of Bishop's "We Have Been Here Before"[xviii] reads
I had the same sense of persistence
On the site of the seat of the Sioux;
I heard in the teepee the sound of a sleepy
Pleistocene grunt. It was you.
The poetLouis Untermeyer described the poem as "a fine burlesque of a hundred stereotyped nostalgias".[116]
In his introduction toWhat Cheer, his own 1945 compendium of "American and British humorous and witty verse", the poetDavid McCord listed a dozen personal favorites; "We Have Been Here Before" was one.[117] Decades later, McCord praised Bishop's "technical skill" and "perfect ear" as displayed in this poem with those ofThomas Love Peacock as displayed in "The War Song of Dinas Vawr".[109]: 10
Bishop's verse was collected in three volumes during his lifetime:Paramount Poems,Spilt Milk andA Bowl of Bishop. A newspaper review ofParamount Poems (1929, its title page reading " 'If it isn't a PARAMOUNT, it isn't a poem.' — Morris Bishop") found it entertaining:
[Bishop's] ear and his taste are vigorous, rough, unsubtle. But he makes up as an entertainer for what he lacks as a poet. . . . He's the protagonist of an audible smile in every poem—preferably in the last line. . . . He's as fresh and wholesome as a crisp fall apple, and—thank God!—the blemish of whimsicality is not upon him.[118]
Stanley Edgar Hyman regarded Bishop's verse in his second collection,Spilt Milk (1942), together withRichard Armour's inYours for the Asking, as typical ofNew Yorker light verse: "stock light-verse subjects" adding up to a dated "Light Verse Attitude", all making "an impression of flawless technical competence combined with a fine dose of boredom after reading more than a few poems at a sitting".[119][xix]
Like Hyman,Thomas Sugrue found the subject matter of some of the poems dated. Rather than Bishop's dexterity with classical forms, Sugrue particularly appreciated both the results when Bishop "goes back to his country-boy days", and also his "Rabelaisian wit".[120][xx] Louis Untermeyer took a more favorable view ofSpilt Milk. While conceding that "Mr. Bishop is not an originator", he wrote that "he equals and frequently surpasses such contemporary experts in deceptive casualness asF.P.A.,Arthur Guiterman, Norman Levy,Phyllis McGinley, and David McCord . . . one seldom encounters a book with so many examples of barbed humor, experienced (not innocent) merriment, and critical nonsense."[121]
Bishop's third verse collection,A Bowl of Bishop: Museum Thoughts and Other Verses (1954) starts with a recipe fora bowlful (for six). There are 18 "Museum Thoughts", each commenting on a work of art (reproduced on the same page). A review in theBuffalo Courier-Express said that in addition to these, the book includes "some 70 other gems of purest, if hardly serene, light verse".[122] The review of the book inThe New York Times quoted Bishop on the aim of light verse (seeabove), and commented: "at that kind of understood misunderstanding, Mr. Bishop is one of the pre-eminentest".[123]
On receiving advance notice from theDial Press about publication of the book,Harvey Breit, a regular reviewer forThe New York Times, was most impressed by "A Critical Appreciation of Morris Bishop" written (tongue in cheek, by Bishop himself) for the book, and wondered: "Is this the jacket copy to end all (non-factual) jacket copy?"[124]
The Best of Bishop, a posthumous (1980) anthology compiled by Charlotte Putnam Reppert, received a short and dismissive review in theVirginia Quarterly Review, the anonymous reviewer saying thatOgden Nash's poetry was "kinder" than Bishop's,James Thurber's was "droller", and "that of both—better".[125] A much more favorable review by the poetJohn Ciardi started by remarking on Bishop's adeptness in "The Naughty Preposition"[xxi] (also anthologized[126]). Bishop, he wrote:
is without redeeming social significance, unless one is willing to count precision of language and wit as a grace of civil exchange. Bishop is a master of the tongue.[127]
InErnest Gowers' style guideThe Complete Plain Words (1954), Bishop's poem "The Naughty Preposition" was awarded "championship of the sport of preposition-piling".[128] Like other writers,[129] the linguist D. Gary Miller points out that the poem was "written in response to the nonsensical dictum against ending a sentence with a preposition"; but he adds that the degree of preposition-piling (seven consecutive prepositions) in its last line exemplifies "the creativity that makes art out of the ordinary".[130]
David McCord praised "The Naughty Preposition" as "tops" of poems exhibiting a particular skill of Bishop's: "a couple of seamless quatrains producing theeffect of nonsense simply by an unexpected grouping of ordinary words, or by the threading of a string of them like beads in some unusual way".[109]: 11–12
His obituary inThe New York Times called Bishop an "authority" onlimericks, and a very facile composer of them;[6] Richard Armour wrote that he was "the only writer of light verse who has had any marked success with them in recent years".[131] He wrote them prolifically: 29 appear inSpilt Milk, 28 inThe Best of Bishop, and several even in his pseudonymous novelThe Widening Stain (seebelow). The literary scholarWilliam S. Baring-Gould wrote that Bishop was "one of the great masters of the contemporary limerick".[132] Louis Untermeyer wrote that Bishop "has achieved the almost impossible: he has composed dozens of limericks that are decent but, nevertheless, funny".[121] Similarly, the cultural criticGershon Legman called him "the unquestionable modern master in the clean limerick line"[133]: xi (and also praised him for "one of the most penetrating articles written 'On the Limerick'"[133]: liii [xxii]).
Bishop had a mystery novel,The Widening Stain, published in 1942 under the pseudonym W. Bolingbroke Johnson, rather jokily[xxiii] described on the jacket as a former librarian for the American Dairy Goat Association and Okmulgee Agricultural and Mechanical Institute. The novel has been described as "[deriving] both its suspense and its humor . . . from its grotesque mixture of the oil of sex with the water of academic life".[134] Bishop put it together quickly, and when halfway done wrote that "The mystery itself would not deceive an intelligent chimpanzee, but I think I can make it more obscure on second writing."[135] Much of it is set in a university library that, according to his daughterAlison Jolly, borrowed from those ofYale and Cornell.[135] Its sleuth is Gilda Gorham, Chief Cataloger of the library; who according to Bishop's granddaughter Margaretta Jolly appears to be based on his wife.[136]
The review inThe New York Times concluded, "We do not know who W. Bolingbroke Johnson is, but he writes a good story with an academic atmosphere that is not so highly rarefied as we have been led to believe it should be in university circles."[137] A review inThe Spectator described the book, andPercival Wilde's novelTinsley's Bones, as "good American detective stories, and as bright and cheerful as it is possible to be about murder"; however, "there is just something missing [fromThe Widening Stain] that places the story below the first class".[138]Ralph Partridge congratulated the new novelist for devising a new murder motive, but found the novel uneven and amateurish.[139]
The novel was very quickly attributed to Bishop,[xxiv] who expressed some regret about it, inscribing a copy within Cornell's library:
Bishop started a second mystery but did not complete it.[8]
An enthusiastic review inThe New York Times ofA Gallery of Eccentrics (1928)[xxv] summarized by saying that "the author's fastidious sympathy invests [the twelve] with ironic but kindly humanity".[140]
A warm review byRomeyn Berry described the book as revealing "the lives and vivacities of a dozen piquant individuals", all of whom were outclassed by the narrator, himself an invention of Bishop's, an "erudite, irascible don". The review concludes:
Here's a book which, if you break it in tenderly and use it judiciously, will color in your hands like a good pipe and give you solace through many a long night. It's a volume, too, to present to any friend who has a nice discrimination in such matters as tobacco, jade, sound wines, lyric poetry, handsome women, and comfortable books.[141]
The Exotics (1969) profiled 21 more people[xxvi] who were unusual in some way.[142][143] The review inThe Boston Sunday Globe said that Bishop "has chosen a magnificent selection of kooks, eccentrics, hard-luck geniuses, or simply romantic figures, . . . and recounted vividly their zany careers";[144] that inThe Indianapolis News said that "It may be that a few of the exotics are merely eccentrics, included to pad out the book, but the over-all effect is informative and pleasing."[145]
TheKirkus review ofThe Exotics described it as "A pride of little lions—many of them from Revolutionary times—in amiable when not admiring profiles which run about ten pages. . . . Mr. Bishop's style is elderly . . . and given to moralistic ruminations. . . ."[146]
Bishop's youthful experiments included a play produced in 1914 that he later wrote "was the worst play I have ever seen on the stage, and was possibly the worst play ever seen on any stage".[147]
In 1942 Bishop published the anthologyA Treasury of British Humor. A review of this inQueen's Quarterly questioned some of the selections but observed that:
Here we have an American who not only appreciates British humour, but has a subtle appreciation of it, so subtle an appreciation that we are almost afraid that neither he nor his subtlety will be fully appreciated by less subtle readers. But that will be their fault, not his.[148]
Orville Prescott was also surprised by the selection, "only [registering] pained astonishment" when Bishop finds certain works funny. But despite certain regrets, he concluded that "This is a good book, a fat and rich and crisp and juicy book".[149]
Bishop's autobiography was edited by his daughterAlison Jolly asI Think I Have Been Here Before; it "includes poems and the text of many letters written by Bishop, as well as a few illustrations and photographs of Bishop and family".[150][151] As of 2024[update], it remains unpublished.
Bishop headed the Usage Panel of the first edition (1969) ofThe American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.[152] According to one estimate, among the 105 people making up the Usage Panel, Bishop was, together withCalvert Watkins,Mario Pei, and perhapsMorton W. Bloomfield, one of just three or four people "who may be described as linguistic specialists".[153] The panel was elderly (average age 64), and predominantly white, male and middle class. One unimpressed scholar wrote that he "would label Bishop's attitude toward the language aristocratic; 'the instinctive verbalizers of the unlettered mass' must be painful for him both linguistically and socially".[154]
Bishop was a Cornell University faculty trustee from 1957 to 1961.[155]
Toward the end of his life Bishop worked as the curator of theOlin Library's Fiske Petrarch Collection.[4] Reviewing the catalogue of this collection, the HispanistJoseph G. Fucilla was disappointed that the library had only half-heartedly been acquiring newer publications with which to update the collection thatWillard Fiske had started so grandly.[156]
In 1927,[2] Bishop married the artistAlison Mason Kingsbury[157] (1898–1988), who went on to illustrate a number of his books. (They had met at Cornell, where she was working as one of a pair of assistants to the muralistEzra Winter.[8]) Their daughter,Alison Bishop Jolly (1937–2014), was an expert onlemurs.[158][159] The family lived at 903 Wyckoff Road,Cayuga Heights.[75][160]
During the 1940sVladimir Nabokov's minor renown in the US largely derived from his short stories inAtlantic Monthly. Bishop was a great admirer of these, and on learning in 1947 that Nabokov was teaching atWellesley College, invited him to apply for the recently vacated Cornell professorship of Russian literature, for which post Bishop chaired the personnel committee. Nabokov, who knew and enjoyed Bishop's verse, charmed the committee, and the Bishops and the Nabokovs "took an immediate instinctive liking to each other".[161]: 123 While Nabokov and his wifeVéra were at Cornell, "their only close companions" were the Bishops, at whose house they frequently dined.[161]: 135 Bishop and Nabokov would exchange limericks by mail.[162] Bishop "remained for the rest of his life a close friend, correspondent, and literary adviser of [Nabokov]".[2]
A 1967 profile described Bishop as:
an accomplishedbelle-lettrist, a distinguishedliterary biographer, a widely published poet, abon vivant,raconteur, and teacher-scholar who has served Cornell all of his adult life
and as "one of the charter members of a discreetly exclusive faculty society called 'The Circle', organized by the late ProfessorGeorge Sabine in the 1920s", and as having been "a long-time member and supporter of Book and Bowl, a considerably less exclusive organization of students and faculty".[8][xxvii]
Bishop died on 20 November 1973 in Tompkins County Hospital.[75] A service was held for him at Cornell'sSage Chapel.[76][163][164]
In 1928John Barnes Wells published "The silly little fool", a composition for voice and piano accompaniment, using Bishop's "How to Treat Elves".[176][xiv]
Emanuel Rosenberg adapted Bishop's "The Complete Misanthropist",[xxxiv] publishing it in 1944.[9]: 10 [177]
Warren Benson wroteA Song of Joy, for Mixed Voices with words by Bishop, publishing it in 1965.[9]: 14 [177] He adapted Bishop's "Song of the Pop-Bottlers"[xvii] for three-part chorus,[178] "The Naughty Preposition"[xxi] for mixed chorus,[179] and "An Englishman with an Atlas; or, America the Unpronounceable"[xxxv] for mixed chorus.[180]
Ludwig Audrieth and G.L. Coleman adapted Bishop's "Tales of Old Cornell" for the unaccompanied choral workTales of Old Cornell (published together withLingering, with words by Albert W. Smith).[9]: 6 [181]
Edgar Newton Kierulff wrote a play,Moving day in Shakspere's England, "[a]dapted from an original piece by Morris Bishop", and published in 1964 in a small edition for friends.[182]
