Morris Bishop
Encyclopedia
Morris Gilbert Bishop was an American
scholar, historian, biographer, author, and humorist.
Raised in Canada and New York, he attended Cornell from 1910–1913, earning a Bachelor's
in 1913 and then a Master of Arts
degree in 1914. He then worked in the advertising industry and served in the army in World War I
, returning to Cornell afterward to begin teaching in 1921 and to earn a Ph.D. in 1926. He was associated for the whole of his adult life with Cornell University
, as alumnus, Kappa Alpha Professor of Romance Literature and University Historian. Bishop wrote the preeminent history of the university, A History of Cornell.
He also wrote biographies of Pascal
, Champlain
, La Rochefoucauld
, Petrarch
, and St. Francis, as well as his 1928 book, A gallery of eccentrics; or, A set of twelve originals & extravagants from Elagabalus, the waggish emperor to Mr. Professor Porson, the tippling philologer, designed to serve, by example, for the correction of manners & for the edification of the ingenious, which profiled 12 unusual individuals. His 1955 Survey of French Literature 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 in The New York Times
. His 1968 history of the Middle Ages
is still in print under the title The Middle Ages. He was a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (in France), taught as a visiting professor at the University of Athens and Rice University
and served as president of the Modern Language Association
. He was the author of nearly 30 books including the comic mystery The Widening Stain. An expository look into Bishop's perspectives on American history can be found in his frequent contribution of articles to American Heritage Magazine. While he possessed extensive knowledge on the subject, his writings, particularly those concerning the Iroquois
, are not without considerable ethnocentric bias.
His obituary in The New York Times
mentions that he was a very facile composer of limericks, and notes, "Among Professor Bishop's other distinctions was his perception of the literary talent of Vladimir Nabokov
, whom he brought to Cornell in 1948 as a teacher at a time when the Russian-born novelist was just making his mark in this country. Mr. Nabokov considered Professor Bishop as one of his closest friends in the United States and as a sort of spiritual father. They shared a fondness for exactitude in language and for japery as well as a common commitment to literature."
Bishop's comic poems appeared in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post
, The New Yorker
, and Life
. They were collected in two volumes, Paramount Poems (subtitled "If it isn't a PARAMOUNT it isn't a poem"), and Spilt Milk.
"How to Treat Elves," probably his best-known poem, describes a conversation with "The wee-est little elf." When asked what he does, the elf tells the narrator "'I dance 'n fwolic about,' said he, "'n scuttle about and play.'" A few stanzas describe his activities surprising butterflies, "fwigtening" Mr. Mole by jumping out and saying "Boo," and swinging on cobwebs. He asks the narrator "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.
Taking up Trevelyan
's challenge to write didactic poetry, like Virgil
's Georgics
, on a modern subject, Bishop produced "Gas and Hot Air." It describes the operation of a car 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" reproduces the first two stanzas of Shelley
's poem verbatim, then closes:
Bennett Cerf
's Houseful of Laughter (1963) included Bishop's 15 April 1950 The New Yorker composition "Song of the Pop-Bottlers", also compiled in A Bowl of Bishop (The Dial Press, Inc., 1954):
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
scholar, historian, biographer, author, and humorist.
Raised in Canada and New York, he attended Cornell from 1910–1913, earning a Bachelor's
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in 1913 and then a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree in 1914. He then worked in the advertising industry and served in the army in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, returning to Cornell afterward to begin teaching in 1921 and to earn a Ph.D. in 1926. He was associated for the whole of his adult life with Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, as alumnus, Kappa Alpha Professor of Romance Literature and University Historian. Bishop wrote the preeminent history of the university, A History of Cornell.
He also wrote biographies of Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
, Champlain
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain , "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608....
, La Rochefoucauld
François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)
François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac was a noted French author of maxims and memoirs. The view of human conduct his writings describe has been summed up by the words "everything is reducible to the motive of self-interest", though the term "gently cynical" has also been applied...
, Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
, and St. Francis, as well as his 1928 book, A gallery of eccentrics; or, A set of twelve originals & extravagants from Elagabalus, the waggish emperor to Mr. Professor Porson, the tippling philologer, designed to serve, by example, for the correction of manners & for the edification of the ingenious, which profiled 12 unusual individuals. His 1955 Survey of French Literature 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 in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. His 1968 history of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
is still in print under the title The Middle Ages. He was a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (in France), taught as a visiting professor at the University of Athens and Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
and served as president of the Modern Language Association
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
. He was the author of nearly 30 books including the comic mystery The Widening Stain. An expository look into Bishop's perspectives on American history can be found in his frequent contribution of articles to American Heritage Magazine. While he possessed extensive knowledge on the subject, his writings, particularly those concerning the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
, are not without considerable ethnocentric bias.
His obituary in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
mentions that he was a very facile composer of limericks, and notes, "Among Professor Bishop's other distinctions was his perception of the literary talent of Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, whom he brought to Cornell in 1948 as a teacher at a time when the Russian-born novelist was just making his mark in this country. Mr. Nabokov considered Professor Bishop as one of his closest friends in the United States and as a sort of spiritual father. They shared a fondness for exactitude in language and for japery as well as a common commitment to literature."
Bishop's comic poems appeared in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, and Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
. They were collected in two volumes, Paramount Poems (subtitled "If it isn't a PARAMOUNT it isn't a poem"), and Spilt Milk.
"How to Treat Elves," probably his best-known poem, describes a conversation with "The wee-est little elf." When asked what he does, the elf tells the narrator "'I dance 'n fwolic about,' said he, "'n scuttle about and play.'" A few stanzas describe his activities surprising butterflies, "fwigtening" Mr. Mole by jumping out and saying "Boo," and swinging on cobwebs. He asks the narrator "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.
Taking up Trevelyan
Trevelyan
Trevelyan is a Cornish surname derived from a Cornish place meaning "Village of Elian".-People:* Sir John Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, English MP* Sir John Trevelyan, 4th Baronet, British MP* Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet, British civil servant...
's challenge to write didactic poetry, like Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Georgics
Georgics
The Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...
, on a modern subject, Bishop produced "Gas and Hot Air." It describes the operation of a car 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
Ozymandias
"Ozymandias" is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818 in the January 11 issue of The Examiner in London. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem...
Revisited" reproduces the first two stanzas of Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
's poem verbatim, then 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.
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...
's Houseful of Laughter (1963) included Bishop's 15 April 1950 The New Yorker composition "Song of the Pop-Bottlers", also compiled in A Bowl of Bishop (The Dial Press, Inc., 1954):
- Pop bottles pop-bottles
- In pop shops;
- The pop-bottles Pop bottles
- Poor Pop drops.
- When Pop drops pop-bottles,
- Pop-bottles plop!
- Pop-bottle-tops topple!
- Pop mops slop!
- Stop! Pop'll drop bottle!
- Stop, Pop, stop!
- When Pop bottles pop-bottles,
- Pop-bottles pop!
External links
- "How to Treat Elves," full text online: @ucla.edu, @roberttriptow.com