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John Edward Masefield, OM, (1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967), was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967. He is remembered as the author of the classic children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, two novels "Captain Margaret" and "Multitude and Solitude" and a great deal of memorable poetry, including "The Everlasting Mercy", and "Sea-Fever", from his anthology Saltwater Ballads. Image File history File links Photo of English poet John Masefield. ...
For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ...
June 1 is the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...
May 12 is the 132nd day of the year (133rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ...
Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto)1 Unified - by Athelstan 927 AD Area - Total...
A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events. ...
Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Midnight Folk is a childrens fantasy novel by John Masefield. ...
The Box of Delights is a childrens fantasy novel by John Masefield. ...
Life
Early life Masefield was born in Ledbury, in Herefordshire, a rural area in England. His mother died at giving birth to his brother when Masefield was only 6 and he went to live with his aunt. His father died soon after. After an unhappy education at the King's School in Warwick (now known as Warwick School), where he was a boarder between 1888 and 1891, he left to board the HMS Conway, both to train for a life at sea, and to break his addiction to reading, of which his Aunt thought little. He spent several years aboard this ship and found that he could spend much of his time reading and writing. It was aboard the Conway that Masefield’s love for story-telling grew. While on the ship, he listened to the stories told about sea lore. He continued to read, and felt that he was to become a writer and story teller himself. Location within the British Isles Ledbury (known locally as jippo)is a town in Herefordshire, England. ...
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county and unitary district (known as County of Herefordshire) in the West Midlands region of England. ...
Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto)1 Unified - by Athelstan 927 AD Area - Total...
The Myton Road frontage of Warwick School, dating from 1879 Warwick School is an independent school for boys in Warwick, England, and is reputed to be the third-oldest surviving school in the country after Kings School, Canterbury and St. ...
Warwick (pronounced or War-ick (silent w in middle)) is the historic county town of Warwickshire in England and has a population of 25,434 (2001 census). ...
HMS Conway was a naval training school or school ship, founded in 1859 and housed for most of its life aboard a 19th-century wooden battleship. ...
In 1894, Masefield boarded the Gilcruix, destined for Chile, this first voyage bringing him the experience of sea sickness and a taste of fierce weather. He recorded his experiences while sailing through the extreme weather: it was obvious from his journal entries that he delighted in viewing flying fish, porpoises, and birds, and was awed by the beauty of nature, including a rare sighting of a nocturnal rainbow on his voyage. Upon reaching Chile, Masefield suffered from sunstroke and was hospitalized. He eventually returned home to England as a passenger aboard a steam ship. Genera Cheilopogon Cypselurus Danichthys Exocoetus Fodiator Hirundichthys Oxyporhamphus Parexocoetus Prognichthys The Execoetidae or flyingfishes are a marine fish family comprising about 70 species grouped in 7 to 9 genera. ...
Genera Neophocaena Phocoena - Harbor porpoise Phocoenoides - Dalls porpoise The porpoises are small cetaceans of the family Phocoenidae; they are related to whales and dolphins. ...
Hyperthermia is an acute condition resulting from excessive exposure to heat, it is also known as heat stroke or sunstroke. ...
In 1895, Masefield returned to sea on a windjammer destined for New York City. However, the urge to become a writer and the hopelessness of life as a sailor overtook him, and in New York, he deserted ship. He lived as a vagrant for several months, before returning to New York City, where he was able to find work as an assistant to a bar keeper. A windjammer is a type of sailing ship with a large iron hull, usually used for cargo in the nineteenth century. ...
New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ...
For the next two years, Masefield was employed in a carpet factory, where long hours were expected and conditions were far from ideal. He purchased up to 20 books a week, and devoured both modern and classical literature. His interests at this time were diverse and his reading included works by Trilby, Dumas, Thomas Browne, Hazlitt, Dickens, Kipling, and R. L. Stevenson. Chaucer also became very important to him during this time, as well as poetry by Keats and Shelley. William Norman Ewer (1885 - 1976) was a British journalist, remembered mostly now for a few lines of verse. ...
Alexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870) was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. ...
Sir Thomas Browne (October 19, 1605 – October 19, 1682) was an English author of varied works that disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric. ...
William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, often esteemed the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson. ...
“Dickens†redirects here. ...
This article is about the British author. ...
Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. ...
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. ...
Keats grave in Rome (left). ...
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When Masefield was 23, he met his future wife, Constance Crommelin, who was 35. Educated in classics and English Literature, and a mathematics teacher, Constance was a perfect match for Masefield despite the difference in age. The couple had two children (Judith, born in 1904, and Lewis, in 1910).[1] The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S...
By 24, Masefield’s poems were being published in periodicals and his first collected works, "Salt-Water Ballads" was published. "Sea Fever" appeared in this book. Masefield then wrote two novels, "Captain Margaret" (1908) and "Multitude and Solitude" (1909). In 1911, after a long drought of poem writing, he composed "The Everlasting Mercy".
"The Everlasting Mercy" was the first of his narrative poems, and within the next year, Masefield produced 2 more narrative poems, "The Widow in the Bye Street" and "Dauber". As a result of the writing of these three poems, Masefield became widely known to the public and was praised by critics, and in 1912, the annual Edmund de Polignac prize was bestowed upon Masefield.[2] Narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story. ...
World War I to appointment as Poet Laureate When World War I began, though old enough to be exempted from military service, Masefield went to the Western Front as a medical orderly, later publishing his own account of his experiences. “The Great War †redirects here. ...
Western Front was a term used during the First and Second World Wars to describe the contested armed frontier between lands controlled by Germany to the East and the Allies to the West. ...
After returning home, Masefield was invited to the United States on a 3 month lecture tour. Although Masefield's primary purpose was to lecture on English Literature, a secondary purpose was to collect information on the mood and views of Americans regarding the war in Europe. When he returned back to England, he submitted a report to the British Foreign Office, and suggested that he be allowed to write a book about the failure of the allied efforts in the Dardanelles, which possibly could be used in the US in order to counter what he thought was German propaganda there. As a result, Masefield wrote ‘Gallipoli’. This work was a success, encouraging the British people, and lifting them somewhat from the disappointment they had felt as a result of the Allied losses in the Dardanelles. The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S...
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is the United Kingdom abroad. ...
Map of the Dardanelles The Dardanelles (Turkish: Çanakkale BoÄŸazı, Greek: ΔαÏδανÎλλια, Dardanellia), formerly known as the Hellespont (Greek: Eλλήσποντος, Hellespontos), is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. ...
Gallipoli peninsula (Turkish: ) is located in Turkish Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. ...
Due to the success of his wartime writings, Masefield met with the head of British Military Intelligence in France and was asked to write an account of the Battle of the Somme. Although Masefield had grand ideas for his book, he was denied access to the official records, and therefore, what was to be his preface to the book was published as "The Old Front Line", a description of the geography of the Somme area. Combatants British Empire United Kingdom Australia Canada New Zealand Newfoundland South Africa France German Empire Commanders Douglas Haig Joseph Joffre Max von Gallwitz Fritz von Below Strength 13 British and 11 French divisions (initial) 51 British and 48 French divisions (final) 10½ divisions (initial) 50 divisions (final) Casualties 419,654...
In 1918, Masefield returned to America on his second lecture tour. Masefield spent much of his time speaking and lecturing to American soldiers waiting to be sent to Europe. These speaking engagements were very successful, and on one occasion, a battalion of all Black soldiers danced and sang for him after his talk. During this tour, he matured as a public speaker and realized his ability to touch the emotions of his audience with his style of speaking, learning to speak publicly with his own heart, rather than from dry scripted speeches. Towards the end of his trip, both Yale and Harvard Universities conferred honorary Doctorates of Letters on him. YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment) is an environment for machine learning experiments and data mining. ...
Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ...
Masefield entered the 1920's as an accomplished and respected writer. His family was able to settle in a somewhat rural setting, not far from Oxford, and Masefield took up beekeeping, goat-herding and poultry-keeping.
Masefield continued to meet with success, the 1923 edition of "Collected Poems" selling approximately 80,000 copies, quite a lot for a book of poetry. Another threesome of narrative poems was produced by Masefield early in this decade. The first was "Reynard The Fox", a poem that has been critically compared with works of Chaucer. This was followed by "Right Royal" and "King Cole", poems of beauty and movement, with the relationship of humanity and nature emphasized. While Reynard is the best known of these, all met with acclaim.
In 1921, Masefield received an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Oxford University, and in 1923, organized the Oxford Recitations, an annual contest whose purpose was "to discover good speakers of verse and to encourage ‘the beautiful speaking of poetry.’" The Recitations were seen as a success given the impressive numbers of contest applicants, the promotion of natural speech in poetical recitations, and the number of people learning how to listen to poetry. Masefield began to question however, whether the Recitations should continue as a contest, believing that the event should become more of a festival. In 1929, Masefield broke with the contest concept, and the Recitations came to an end.
Masefield also wrote a very large number of dramatic pieces during this time. Most of his dramas were based on themes of Christianity, and in 1928, his "The Coming of Christ" was the first play to be performed in an English Cathedral since the middle ages.[3]
Later years In 1930, due to the death of Robert Bridges, a new Poet Laureate was needed. Many felt that Rudyard Kipling was a likely choice. However, upon the recommendation of the British Prime Minister, King George V appointed Masefield, who remained in office until his death in 1967. The only person to remain in the office for a longer period was Tennyson. This article is about the British author. ...
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was the first British monarch belonging to the House of Windsor, which he created from the British branch of the German House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. ...
Although the requirements of Poet Laureate had changed, and those in the office were no longer required to write verse for special occasions, Masefield took his appointment seriously and produced a large quantity of verse. Poems composed in his official capacity were sent to The Times. Masefield’s humility was shown by his inclusion of a stamped envelope with each submission so that his composition could be returned if it were found unacceptable for publication. The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom since 1788. ...
After his appointment, Masefield received many honors, including the Order of Merit by King George V. He was the recipient of many more honorary degrees from Universities throughout the United Kingdom, and in 1937 he was elected President of the Society of Authors. For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ...
The Society of Authors (UK) is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights (with particular attention to copyright protection and, later, the establishment of Public Lending Right). ...
Masefield encouraged the continued development of English literature and poetry, and began the annual awarding of the Royal Medals for Poetry for a first or second published edition of poetry by a poet under the age of 35. Additionally, his speaking engagements were calling him further away, often on much longer tours, yet he still produced a veritable amount of work.
It was not until about the age of 70, that Masefield slowed his pace due to illness. But even then, he continued to learn new things, and took a greater interest in classical music. In 1960, Constance died at 93, after a long illness. Masefield was constantly at Constance’s side, and although her death was heartrending to him, he had spent a very tiring year watching the woman he adored die. He continued his duties faithfully as Poet Laureate, and even his other literary works continued. His last published book, "In Glad Thanksgiving", was published when he was 88 years old.
On May 12, 1967, John Masefield died, after having suffered through a spread of gangrene up his leg. According to his wishes, he was cremated and his ashes placed in the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey. Later, the following verse was discovered, written by Masefield, addressed to his ‘Heirs, Administrators, and Assigns’:
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- Let no religious rite be done or read
- In any place for me when I am dead,
- But burn my body into ash, and scatter
- The ash in secret into running water,
- Or on the windy down, and let none see;
- And then thank God that there’s an end of me.[4]
Works This is not an exhaustive list
Poetry The Death Rooms
"The Everlasting Mercy" 1911 Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
"Sea-Fever"
"The Widow in the Bye Street" (1912) 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
"Dauber and the Daffodil Fields (1923)"
"Reynard The Fox"
"Right Royal"
"King Cole"
"In Glad Thanksgiving"
Plays - Good Friday: A Play in Verse
- The Tragedy Of Nan (Originally known as 'Nan')
- "The Coming of Christ"
Novels 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ...
Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
There are different notable people named Jim Davis: Jim Davis, the cartoonist of Garfield. ...
Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Sard Harker by John Masefield (1878 - 1967). ...
Year 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Midnight Folk is a childrens fantasy novel by John Masefield. ...
Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...
Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Box of Delights is a childrens fantasy novel by John Masefield. ...
1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ...
1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ...
1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...
For the movie, see 1941 (film). ...
Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Non-fiction and Autobiographical "Gallipoli"
"The Old Front Line"
Popular culture Perhaps the most famous Masefield quotation is from "Sea-Fever": "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by." Besides being used in many other written works, this quotation was also referenced in the film, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Though not directly stated to be so, it hearkens back to a conversation between Kirk and Dr. McCoy in the original Star Trek series episode "The Ultimate Computer". The scene in Star Trek V opens with Dr McCoy quoting Masefield, but forgetting the correct originator of said quotation. This precipitates a rather amusing argument between "Bones" and Spock, who correctly identifies the author. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Paramount Pictures, 1989; see also 1989 in film) is the fifth feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series. ...
The starship Enterprise as it appeared on Star Trek Star Trek is a culturally significant science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. ...
The Ultimate Computer is a season two episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast on March 8, 1968 and repeated June 28, 1968. ...
Notes - ^ [1]
- ^ Early Life
- ^ Middle Life
- ^ Later Life
Image File history File links Information. ...
Shortcut: WP:-( Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. ...
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