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Morris Gilbert Bishop (April 15, 1893 – November 20, 1973) was an American scholar who wrote numerous books on Romance studies history, literature, and biography. His work extended to North American exploration and covered Blaise Pascal, Petrarch, Ronsard, La Rochefoucauld, Cabeza de Vaca, and Champlain—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.
Orphaned at 12, he was brought up in New York state and Ontario, wrote and published precociously, and entered Cornell 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 a ceremonial mace.
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 as Richard Armour, David McCord, and Louis Untermeyer.
Bishop attended Cornell University from 1910 to 1913, earning an A.B. degree,Alden Whitman, "Morris Bishop, scholar and poet, dies," The New York Times, 22 November 1973, p. 40. Reproduced on pp. 8–9 of "A Spirit on This Hill", Cornell Alumni News, vol. 76, no. 6 (January 1974). and also Cornell's Morrison Poetry Prize in 1913"Bishop, the prize winner this year, is a member of the Era board and has contributed some sparkling verse to that magazine. His prize poem is entitled 'A Mood'." Untitled news summary, Cornell Alumni News, vol. 15, no. 26 (2 April 1913), p. 305. (for a poem Bishop later called "hellishly serious")C. Michael Curtis, "Faculty 10: Morris Bishop: The versatile belle-lettrist", Cornell Alumni News, September 1962, pp. 16–19. and an A.M. degree in 1914. After that he sold textbooks for Ginn & Co, joined the US Cavalry (and unhappily served under Pershing in the "punitive expedition" in Mexico), was a first lieutenant in the US Infantry in World War I and a member of the American Relief Administration mission to Finland in 1919,"Morris Bishop." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2000. Gale in Context: Biography. . Accessed 11 August 2022." Morris Bishop – 1959: By the river of Hochelaga: The land the French found", Beatty Lecture Archive, 3 March 1959, McGill University. Accessed 11 August 2022. 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 a PhD in 1926; his thesis was on the plays of Jules Lemaître.Donald D. Eddy, "Morris Bishop: Separate publications", in Marcia Jebb and Donald D. Eddy, Morris Bishop and Alison Mason Kingsbury: A Bibliography of Their Works ( The Cornell Library Journal, no 12, April 1971). He was associated with Cornell for the whole of his adult life—not only as an alumnus but as an academic (he was named Kappa Alpha Professor of Romance Literature in 1938 ) and University historian.
Bishop was a visiting professor at the University of Athens (with a Fulbright teaching fellowship) in 1951,"Bishop to go to Greece", The Ithaca Journal, 19 June 1951, p. 5. Via newspapers.com. at Wells College from 1962 to 1963,"Retired professor gets Wells post", The Ithaca Journal, 19 June 1951, p. 3. Via newspapers.com. and at Rice University in spring 1966.Morag Fullilove, " Pitzer names 52 new professors in university faculty", The Rice Thresher, 23 September 1965, p. 4. In 1964, he was president of the Modern Language Association."The eighty-five presidents of the Modern Language Association", PMLA, vol. 90 (1975), p. 528. .
After retirement from Cornell in 1960, Bishop served as its marshal, officiating at graduations. During the 1970 ceremony (when he was 77), he used the university mace to fend off a graduate who was trying to seize the microphone.Glenn C. Altschuler and Isaac Kramnick, Cornell: A History, 1940–2015 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2014), p. 110. . . "The jab was given in typical Bishop style: with spontaneity, grace and effectiveness," commented the president, Dale R. Corson.
His Survey 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 in The New York Times. , his 1968 history of the Middle Ages is still in print." American Heritage Library Series: The Middle Ages" (sales page), HarperCollins. Accessed 23 January 2023. He was a frequent contributor of historical articles to American Heritage and also wrote a miscellany of lighter material, including the pseudonymous comic mystery The Widening Stain and humorous verse and prose pieces published by a variety of magazines.Marcia Jebb, "Morris Bishop: Contributions to periodicals"; pp. 17–45 within Marcia Jebb and Donald D. Eddy, Morris Bishop and Alison Mason Kingsbury: A Bibliography of Their Works ( The Cornell Library Journal, no. 12, April 1971). His entry in American 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.
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.Seth S. Goldschlager, "Personal profile: Bishop discusses Cornell trends", Cornell Daily Sun, 27 April 1965, pp. S8, S35, S40.
Bishop's papers are held at Cornell University Library's Special Collections. Morris Bishop papers, 1901–1974, library catalog, Cornell University Library. Morris Bishop papers, 1901–1974: Collection number 14-18-641, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
The Romance studies scholar Arthur 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.Arthur Livingston, untitled review of Pascal: The Life of Genius, Romanic Review, vol. 29 (1938), pp. 85–87.
The reviewer for Isis found that Bishop "succeeds in painting an objective as well as an enthusiastic picture";E.C. Watson, untitled review of Pascal: The Life of Genius, and of Physical Treatises of Pascal: The Equilibrium of Liquids and the Weight of the Mass of the Air, translated by I.H.B. and A.G.H. Spiers, Isis, vol. 29 (1938), pp. 116–118. . for the reviewer for The 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."E. A. Beller, untitled review of Pascal: The Life of Genius, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 193 (1937), pp. 198–199. . The review in Philosophy called the book an "altogether admirable biography", both critical and sympathetic;E. S. Waterhouse, untitled review of Pascal: The Life of Genius, Philosophy, vol. 12 (1937), pp. 495–496. the reviewer for The 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."G. B., untitled review of Pascal: The Life of Genius, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 34 (1937), p. 76. . .
Bishop's Blaise Pascal (a 1966 mass-market paperback) followed a brief description of Pascal's life with a selection of his writings."Paperback library: Greek cultural ideals studied", Lake Charles American Press (Lake Charles, Louisiana), 28 March 1966, p. 5. Via NewspaperArchive.
Invited to name the outstanding book of the period 1931 to 1961, Bishop named his own Pascal: 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.""Outstanding books, 1931–1961", The American Scholar, vol. 30 (1961), pp. 600–630. . Bishop writes on p. 600.
The review in Saturday Review of Literature of Petrarch 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".Robert J. Clements, "Laurels in lieu of the lady" (review of Petrarch and His World), Saturday Review of Literature, 7 December 1963, pp. 59–60. The review in Italica 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".Lena M. Ferrari, untitled review of Petrarch and His World, Italica, vol. 42 (1965), pp. 289–291. That in The 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.James M. Powell, untitled review of Petrarch and His World, The Historian, vol. 27 (1964), pp. 106 107. The Shakespeare scholar M. C. Bradbrook found the biography "engaging".M. C. Bradbrook, "Medieval model" (review of The Discarded Image, by C. S. Lewis, and very of Petrarch and His World), New Statesman, 7 August 1964, p. 188. The reviewer for the Canadian 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."Paul Grendler, untitled review of Petrarch and His World, Canadian Journal of History = Annales canadiennes d'histoire, vol. 1 (1966), pp. 87–88. The review in Renaissance News praised Bishop for "having managed to find a human being at the heart of the and to treat him kindly as well as sanely", and praised the book for its informativeness and interest and the gracefulness of its translations.Jules A. Wein, untitled review of Petrarch and His World, Renaissance News, vol. 17 (1964), pp. 101–103. . . The New York Times regular book reviewer Orville 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.Orville Prescott, "Books of the Times: The poet and the respectable Avignon housewife" (review of Petrarch and His World), The New York Times, 16 December 1963. The reviewer for Speculum conceded that the book had some brilliant ingredients but compared it unfavourably with one by the Petrarch specialist Ernest H. Wilkins, 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.Thomas Caldecot Chubb, untitled review of Petrarch and His World, Speculum, vol. 39 (1964), pp. 310–311. . .
Bishop translated Petrarch's letters (selected from both the Familiares and the Seniles, and elsewhere) from Latin for Letters 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".Mark Musa, "Poet's epistles to posterity" (review of Letters from Petrarch), Saturday Review of Literature, 21 January 1967, p. 39. The review for Renaissance 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.Charles Trinkaus, untitled review of Letters from Petrarch, Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 20 (1967), pp. 481–483. . .
The review continued by saying that Bishop's book complemented James Harvey Robinson and Henry Winchester Rolfe's Petrarch the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters (1898), the latter remaining "most valuable" despite its stilted translations. The review for The 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. . . ."Guido A. Guarino, untitled review of Letters from Petrarch, The Modern Language Journal, vol. 52 (1968), pp. 456–457. . . The reviews in both the Renaissance Quarterly and MLJ 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.
A second French literature scholar, Harold 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".H. W. Lawton, untitled review of Ronsard: Prince of Poets, Modern Language Review, vol. 36 (1941), p. 269.
The reviewer for found the biography one-sided and the book unscholarly as a whole, but had high praise for the translations.Timothy J. Burke, untitled review of Ronsard: Prince of Poets, Thought: Fordham University Quarterly, vol. 15 (1940), p. 742. . The reviewer for Modern 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".Wm. A. Nitze, untitled review of Ronsard: Prince of Poets, Modern Language Notes, vol. 56 (1941), pp. 231–232. . .
Two other reviewers praised the book for the inferences it draws from the maxims.W. G. Moore, "The seventeenth century" (survey of recently published books), The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, vol. 14 (1952), pp. 51–55. (The mention of Bishop is on p. 53.)L. E. Winfrey, untitled review of The Life and Adventures of La Rochefoucauld, on p. 41 within "Head-Liners", Books Abroad, vol. 27 (1952), pp. 40–48.
The 1965 revised edition made changes to the selections and slightly augmented the annotations. Despite quibbles with certain points, the reviewer for The 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".Claude K. Abraham, untitled review of the first volume of A Survey of French Literature (1965), The Modern Language Journal, vol. 50 (1966), pp. 129–130. . .
The third edition (2005–2006), revised by Kenneth T. Rivers and in five volumes, again changed the selections and increased the annotations.Stacey Weber-Fève, untitled review of the fifth volume of A Survey of French Literature (2006), The French Review, vol. 81 (2007), pp. 204–205. .Sabine Loucif, "French in American universities: Toward the reshaping of Frenchness", Yale French Studies, no 113 (2008), pp. 115–131. . 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.Karlis Racevskis, untitled review of A Survey of French Literature, 3rd ed., vol. 3, The Eighteenth Century, The French Review, vol. 81 (2008), pp. 838–839. .
Eight Plays by Molière in Bishop's translation— The Precious Damsels, The School for Wives, , , Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, The Physician in Spite of Himself, The Would-Be Gentleman—appeared as a volume of the Modern Library in 1957. The reviewer for The French Review found the translations of Molière "brilliant", and praised Bishop's short introduction to each play.J. H., untitled review of Eight Plays by Molière, The French Review, vol. 31 (1958), pp. 452–453. . The reviewer for The Modern Language Journal found "infrequent disappointments" with Bishop's translations, but supposed that the book would be "genuinely useful".Hugh H. Chapman, untitled review of Eight Plays by Molière, The Modern Language Journal, vol. 46 (1962), pp. 190–191. . .
Before Bishop's translations of Molière into English, those most commonly used had been the "really bad" Modern Library selection by Henri van Laun, who according to the French literature scholar Donald Frame "had a genuine talent for dullness". Together with the poet Richard Wilbur's rhymed translation of Le Misanthrope, 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".Donald Frame, "Pleasures and problems of translation", pp. 70–92 in The Craft of Translation, edited by John Biguenet and (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). . (See pp. 75–77.)
A review in The American Scholar had high praise for A Medieval Storybook: "The 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 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".W.T.H. Jackson, "Medieval entertainments" (review of A Medieval Storybook), The American Scholar, vol. 40 (1971), pp. 348, 350, 352. .
Much of A Renaissance Storybook consisted of translations by Bishop from the Italian.Robin Healey, Italian Literature before 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929–2008 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), p. 398. . A Romantic Storybook has been called "a delightful collection".Roland N. Stromberg, An Intellectual History of Modern Europe (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p. 530. .
The review in The Modern Language Journal of Bishop's edition (1933) of Giacomo Casanova's L'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.H. R. Ruse, untitled review of L'Évasion des Plombs, The Modern Language Journal, vol. 18, pp. 343–344. . .
"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, of "late medieval devotional verse in Monorhyme alexandrine 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".William Ryding, untitled review of "Le Roman de vrai amour" and "Le Pleur de sainte âme", Romanic Review, vol. 50 (1959), pp. 279–280.. The reviewer for The Modern Language Review found the chapter "interesting".M. Domenica Legge, untitled review of "Le Roman de vrai amour" and "Le Pleur de sainte âme", The Modern Language Review, vol. 54 (1959), p. 304.
Of Bishop's posthumously published Saint Francis of Assisi, the anonymous reviewer for Kirkus 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. Untitled review of Saint Francis of Assisi, Kirkus Reviews, 7 November 1974. Accessed 26 November 2017.
A much later survey of the American reception of Francis of Assisi judged that "the book is derivative and generally undistinguished".Patricia Appelbaum, St. Francis of America: How a Thirteenth-Century Friar Became America's Most Popular Saint (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), pp. 115–116. . ; accessed 26 November 2017.
Bishop also published articles on other writers: as examples, ChateaubriandMorris Bishop, "Chateaubriand in New York State", PMLA, vol. 64 (1954), pp. 876–886. . and Dante AlighieriMorris Bishop, "Dante's pilgrimage", Horizon, vol. 7 (Summer 1965), pp. 4–15. At the time of his death, he was working on a biography of Cola di Rienzo.Pauline Kerns, "Cornell U. historian, renowned writer, dies", The Ithaca Journal, 21 November 1973, p. 3. Via newspapers.com.Tom Cawley, "A scholar with a twinkle and a jab", Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, New York), 25 November 1973, p. 17.
Comparing the book with John Eoghan Kelly's Pedro de Alvarado Conquistator, the poet Theodore 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".Theodore Maynard, untitled review of The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca, and of Pedro de Alvarado Conquistator by John Eoghan Kelly, Catholic Historical Review, vol. 21 (1935), pp. 219–221. The reviewer for The Journal of Modern History found it a "highly entertaining and instructive narrative".James Edward Gillespie, untitled review of The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 5 (1933), pp. 520–521. . The reviews in both The Hispanic American Historical Review and The Journal of Negro History pointed out various problems; yet the former concluded that the book was largely accurate as well as "delightfully written",A. Curtis Wilgus, untitled review of The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca, The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 14 (1934), pp. 84–85. . . and the latter that the book was "a brilliant piece of historical research".James B. Browning, untitled review of The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca, The Journal of Negro History, vol. 20 (1935), pp. 245–247. . .
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".Morris Bishop, untitled review of Cleve Hallenbeck, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: The Journey and Route of the First European to Cross the Continent of North America (Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark, 1940), Hispanic American Historical Review 20 (1940), pp. 141–142. .
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".James Axtell, untitled review of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Pautz (1999), The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 58 (2001), pp. 475–479. . . 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 Wells set forth some fourteen years earlier".Donald E. Chipman and Robert S. Weddle, "How historical myths are born . . . and why they seldom die", Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. 116 (2013), pp. 226–258. . .
Bishop's White Men Came to the St. Lawrence (1961) earned a dismissive mention in a survey of the literature of colonialism that classed it with Les Canadiens d'autrefois of as likely to appeal to the general public and schoolchildren., "Histoire de la colonisation (Afrique exceptée)", Revue historique, vol. 243 (1970), pp. 415–430. See pp. 420–421. . However, the novelist Robertson Davies greatly enjoyed the book "as 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.Robertson Davies, "Writer's diary: Canadian explorers had a tough time", The Winnipeg Tribune, 13 January 1962, p. 42. Via NewspaperArchive.
The Horizon 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".Laura Scott Meyers, untitled review of The Horizon History of the Medieval World, El Paso Herald-Post, 25 January 1969, p. 8.
The book was later republished as The Middle Ages, The Penguin Book of the Middle Ages, and The Pelican Book of the Middle Ages.
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.Frederick Rudolph, untitled review of A History of Cornell, The Historian, vol. 25 (1963), pp. 252–253. A review in The 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 the land-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.David D. Henry, untitled review of A History of Cornell, The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 34 (1963), pp. 235–236. . .
History of Education Quarterlys reviewer had high praise for Bishop's portrayal of the founders, Ezra Cornell and Andrew 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 leaders dreamed and worked".Timothy Heyward Smith, untitled review of A History of Cornell, History of Education Quarterly, vol. 3 (1963), pp. 176–177. . . 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."Donald Mintz, "A book for today: Roots and growth of ivy-clad school" (review of A History of Cornell), Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 28 June 1963, p. A12. Via Chronicling America (Library of Congress).
The first part of the work was reissued in 1967 as Early Cornell, 1865–1900. It was reviewed in British Journal of Educational Studies together with Becker's Cornell 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".Ann Dryland, untitled review of Early Cornell, 1865–1900, and of Cornell University: Founders and the Founding, by Carl L. Becker (1967), British Journal of Educational Studies, vol. 16 (1968), pp. 336–337. . .
A History of Cornell retained its high reputation decades after it was published.Donald Alexander Downs, Cornell '69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 26, 325, 327. , .Karen M. Laun, Cornell University Press, Est. 1869: Our First 150 Years (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2019), p. 68. . .
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.Morris Bishop, "On light verse", A Bowl of Bishop (1954), p. 3.
Bishop's obituary in The New York Times describes him as "an extraordinarily gifted writer" of light verse, publishing "about fifteen poems and casuals a year in the New Yorker" over a period of more than thirty years. Bishop also published verse in The Saturday Evening Post, Archaeology,Morris Bishop, "Acknowledgments", A Bowl of Bishop (1954) Poetry, The Colonnade, The Measure, The Smart Set, Judge, Saturday Review of Literature and the pre-Luce Life.
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.David McCord, "Foreword"; in Morris Bishop, The Best of Bishop: Light Verse from "The New Yorker" and Elsewhere (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1980).
Writing in 1960, Richard Armour put Bishop together with F.P.A., Margaret Fishback, Arthur Guiterman, Samuel Hoffenstein, Ethel Jacobson, David McCord, Phyllis McGinley, Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker, E.B. White, and John Updike as "the old (and middle-aged) masters of light verse" that a would-be writer of light verse should study.Richard Armour, " Vintage WD: Don't hide your light verse under a bushel", Writer's Digest, 3 December 2020 (first published in 1960). Accessed 15 August 2022.
"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.Alison Lurie, Boys and Girls Together: Children's Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter (London: Chatto & Windus, 2003), p. 155. .
Taking up the poet R. C. Trevelyan's challenge (in Thamyris, 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". It describes the operation of a car engine; "Vacuum pulls me; and I come! I come!" cries the gasoline, which reaches
The 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", also widely anthologized,Among the anthology appearances are:
reproduces the first two stanzas of Ozymandias 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", again widely anthologized,Among the anthology appearances are:
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".George Moore, "Can't we do poetry, Sir?"; in Dorothy Atkinson, ed., The Children's Bookroom: Reading and the Use of Books (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire: Trentham, 1989), p. 45. .
One stanza of Bishop's "We Have Been Here Before" 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 poet Louis Untermeyer described the poem as "a fine burlesque of a hundred stereotyped nostalgias".Louis Untermeyer, A Treasury of Laughter: Consisting of Humorous Stories, Poems, Essays, Tall Tales, Jokes, Boners, Epigrams, Memorable Quips, and Devastating Crushers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946), pp. 57–58.
In his introduction to What Cheer, his own 1945 compendium of "American and British humorous and witty verse", the poet David McCord listed a dozen personal favorites; "We Have Been Here Before" was one.David McCord, What Cheer: An Anthology of American and British Humorous and Witty Verse (New York: Coward-McCann, 1945), pp. xxiv–xxv. (The poem itself appears on p. 150.) Other anthology appearances include:
Decades later, McCord praised Bishop's "technical skill" and "perfect ear" as displayed in this poem with those of Thomas Love Peacock as displayed in "The War Song of Dinas Vawr".
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.Florence Haxton, "Entertainment makes up for lack of poetry", The Charleston Gazette, 15 December 1929, p. 42. Available via NewspaperArchive.
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".Thomas Sugrue, "Verses light and gay" (review of Spilt Milk, and of Yours for the Asking by Richard Armour), New York Herald Tribune, 1 November 1942, p. F27. Louis Untermeyer took a more favorable view of Spilt Milk. While conceding that "Mr. Bishop is not an originator", he wrote that "he equals and frequently surpasses such contemporary experts in deceptive casualness as F.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."Louis Untermeyer, "New books in review: Cream of the Verse" (review of 14 poetry books, including Spilt Milk), Yale Review, new series, volume 32 (winter 1943), pp. 366–371. (See p. 371.)
On receiving advance notice from the Dial Press about publication of the book, Harvey Breit, a regular reviewer for The 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?"Harvey Breit, "In and out of books", The New York Times, 7 February 1954.
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.John Ciardi, "Books dispense with distance from nonsense" (review of The Best of Bishop, and of Speak Up by David McCord and A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear), The Sunday Herald (Arlington Heights, Illinois Daily Herald), 16 November 1980, p. 45. (The byline is "John Ciardy", and the story is attributed to The Washington Post.)
In Ernest Gowers' style guide The Complete Plain Words (1954), Bishop's poem "The Naughty Preposition" was awarded "championship of the sport of preposition-piling".Mark Liberman, " Prepositional cannibalism", Language Log, 28 January 2007. Accessed 22 August 2022. Like other writers,Among these are:
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".D. Gary Miller, English Lexicogenesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. x, 96–97. .
David McCord praised "The Naughty Preposition" as "tops" of poems exhibiting a particular skill of Bishop's: "a couple of seamless quatrains producing the effect 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".
The review in The 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."Isaac Anderson, "New mystery stories" (review of The Widening Stain), The New York Times, 8 February 1942. A review in The Spectator described the book, and Percival Wilde's novel Tinsley'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 from that places the story below the first class".John Fairfield, "As you like it" (review of The Widening Stain and five other crime novels), The Spectator, 25 June 1943, p. 598. Ralph Partridge congratulated the new novelist for devising a new murder motive, but found the novel uneven and amateurish.Ralph Partridge, "Detection" (review of The Widening Stain and nine other crime novels), The New Statesman and Nation, 27 March 1943, pp. 211–212.
The novel was very quickly attributed to Bishop, who expressed some regret about it, inscribing a copy within Cornell's library:
A cabin in northern Wisconsin Is what I would be for the nonce in, To be rid of the pain Of The Widening Stain And W. Bolingbroke Johnson.
Bishop started a second mystery but did not complete it.
A warm review by Romeyn 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.Romeyn ("R. B."), "Announcing a male book" (review of A Gallery of Eccentrics), Cornell Alumni News, vol. 31, no. 5 (25 October 1928), p. 52. (In his obituary of Bishop, John Marcham identifies "R. B." as Berry.)
The Exotics (1969) profiled 21 more people who were unusual in some way."Today's book", Press-Telegram (Long Beach, California), 17 December 1969, p. 35. Via NewspaperArchive.Ruth English, "Library news: Selections from the adult collection", The News (Frederick, Maryland), 20 March 1970, p. 7. Via NewspaperArchive. The review in The 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";Herbert A. Kenny, "Immortality through kookiness" (review of The Exotics), Boston Sunday Globe, 14 September 1969, p. 22A. Via newspapers.com. that in The 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."Joseph Bennett, "'Exotics' is filled with surprises" (review of The Exotics), The Indianapolis News, 4 October 1969, p. 36. Via newspapers.com.
The Kirkus Reviews review of The 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. . . ." Untitled review of The Exotics, Kirkus Reviews, 10 September 1969. Accessed 26 November 2017.
Bishop's anthology A Treasury of British Humor was published in 1942. A review in Queen'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.J. A. R., untitled review of A Treasury of British Humor, Queen's Quarterly, vol. 50 (January 1943), pp. 113–114.
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".Orville Prescott, "Books of the Times" (review of A Treasury of British Humor and three other books), The New York Times, 16 November 1942. Bishop's autobiography was edited by his daughter Alison Jolly as I 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". Cornell University library catalog entry, retrieved 26 January 2023.. , it remains unpublished.
Bishop was a Cornell University faculty trustee from 1957 to 1961.John C. Adams, Henry Guerlac, Deane W. Malott, Paul M. O'Leary, Blanchard L. Rideout, " Morris Gilbert Bishop", Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement. (Although dated 1973 by Cornell eCommons, this describes an event that happened in 1974.) Accessed 29 August 2022. He worked toward the end of his life as the curator of the Olin Library's Fiske Petrarch Collection. Reviewing the catalogue of this collection, the Hispanist Joseph G. Fucilla was disappointed that the library had only half-heartedly acquired newer publications to update the collection started by Willard Fiske .Joseph G. Fucilla, untitled review of Petrarch: Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection in Cornell University Library, Italica, vol. 53 (1976), pp. 90–95. . .
A 1967 profile described Bishop as "an accomplished belle-lettrist, a distinguished literary biographer, a widely published poet, a bon 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 Professor George 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".
Bishop died on 20 November 1973 in Tompkins County Hospital. A service was held for him at Cornell's Sage Chapel.Elizabeth Baker Wells, Contributions to Cornell History: Portraits, Memorabilia, Plaques and Artists, revised edition (1984), p. 77."Morris Bishop, poet and scholar", Cornell Chronicle, 29 November 1973, pp. 1, 6, 7.
Warren Benson wrote A Song of Joy, for Mixed Voices with words by Bishop, publishing it in 1965. He adapted Bishop's "Song of the Pop-Bottlers" for three-part chorus,. "The Naughty Preposition" for mixed chorus,. and "An Englishman with an Atlas; or, America the Unpronounceable" for mixed chorus..
Ludwig Audrieth and G.L. Coleman adapted Bishop's "Tales of Old Cornell" for the unaccompanied choral work Tales of Old Cornell (published together with Lingering, with words by Albert W. Smith).. Edgar Newton Kierulff wrote a play, Moving day in Shakspere's England, "adapted from an original piece by Morris Bishop", and published in 1964 in a small edition for friends..
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