Francis Peabody Magoun

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Francis Peabody Magoun MC (January 6, 1895 – June 5, 1979) was an American British Royal Flying Corps Lieutenant, who served in the First World War and became an ace on October 28, 1918.

After the war, he remained in England for some time. When he returned to the United States he became professor of English at Harvard University, specialised in Finnish studies.

Magoun compared the oral poetry of the Guslari of Serbia to the written records of Anglo-Saxon poetry. He argued that written Anglo-Saxon poetry was an accurate record of the traditional oral poetry, which has implications for how Anglo-Saxon poetry should be approached for purposes of literary criticism. His ideas held great sway among Medievalists but today it is more widely argued that Anglo-Saxon poetry should be approached as written poetry, meaning that it was written carefully, that it was written by one author, and that it reflects the (Christian) beliefs of the author.

Contents 1 Works and Achievements 1.1 Military achievements 1.2 Literary works 2 External links

[edit] Works and Achievements

[edit] Military achievements

• Awarded the Military Cross (MC) in June 1918
• Awarded the Finnish Order of the Lion of Finland

[edit] Literary works

• "History of football from the beginnings to 1871". 1938. ISBN 0-384-35060-7
• "Old-English anthology: translations of Old-English prose and verse" 1950
• "Walter of Aquitaine; materials for the study of his legend." 1950
• "Graded Finnish reader". 1957
• "Chaucer gazetteer." 1961
• Kalevala, or Poems of the Kaleva District. 1963. ISBN 0-674-50000-8
• The Old Kalevala and Certain Antecedents. 1969. ISBN 0-674-63235-4

He is also credited on a few other works:

• "Founders of England" by Francis B. Gummere 1930
• "Anglo-Saxon reader" by Milton Haight Turk 1930. ISBN 0-674-03650-6

[edit] External links

• PDF: An American ace in the RFC
• A short article at 'The Aerodrome'
• A newspaper article (Unknown origin and date) possibly from the 60's about Magoun's translation of the Kalevala