Morris Bishop

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Morris Gilbert Bishop (1893-1973) was an American scholar, historian, biographer, author, and humorist.

He was associated with Cornell University as alumnus, 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, which profiled twelve unusual individuals. 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.

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.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

"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

   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" reproduces the first two stanzas of Shelley'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.

[edit] External links

"How to Treat Elves," full text online: [1], [2]

[edit] References

Bishop, Morris (1962) A History of Cornell (1st ed.), Cornell University Press; reprinted in 1999, ISBN 0-8014-0036-8.

Bishop, Morris (1968) The Horizon Book of the Middle Ages, Houghton Mifflin; reprinted several times under the title The Middle Ages, current published by Mariner Books, ISBN 0-618-05703-X