The Poetry Of Alan Seeger: “I have a rendezvous with death... I will not fail that rendezvous”

by Alan Seeger

Alan Seeger was born on June 22nd 1888 in New York. The family moved to Staten Island when he was 1 for 9 years and then on to Mexico until he was 12. After attending several elite preparatory schools he enrolled at Harvard in 1906 where he also edited and wrote for the Harvard Monthly. He graduated in 1910 and went to live the life of a bohemian in Greenwich Village, New York thereafter moving to Paris to continue his poetry writing in the Latin quarter. War’s looming dark shadow was to have a transformative effect on the young poet and on August 24th 1914 he joined the French Foreign Legion so he could fight for the Allies. On American Independence day, July 4th, 1917 whilst urging on his fellow soldiers in a successful charge at Belloy-en-Santerre he was hit several times by machine gun fire and died. His poetry was published posthumously later that year, it was not a great success but his poem ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . .’ is now regarded as a classic. On the sixth anniversary of his death a memorial to the American volunteers was unveiled in the Place des Etats-Unis. The memorial was created by Jean Boucher who had used a photograph of Seeger as his inspiration. Two quotes from his poem ‘Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France are inscribed upon “They did not pursue worldly rewards; they wanted nothing more than to live without regret, brothers pledged to the honour implicit in living one's own life and dying one's own death. Hail, brothers! Goodbye to you, the exalted dead! To you, we owe two debts of gratitude the glory of having died for France, and the homage due to you in our memories.”

107 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2014

About the author

Alan Seeger was born in New York. Seeger entered Harvard in 1906 after attending several elite preparatory schools, including Hackley School. At Harvard, he edited and wrote for the Harvard Monthly.

After graduating in 1910, he moved to Greenwich Village for two years, where he wrote poetry and enjoyed the life of a young bohemian.

Having moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris to continue his seemingly itinerant intellectual lifestyle, on August 24, 1914, Seeger joined the French Foreign Legion so that he could fight for the Allies in World War I (the United States did not enter the war until 1917). He was killed in action at Belloy-en-Santerre, famously cheering on his fellow soldiers in a successful charge after being hit several times himself by machine gun fire. One of his more famous poems, I Have a Rendezvous with Death, was published posthumously. Indeed, a recurrent theme in both his poetic works and his personal writings prior to falling in battle was his desire for his life to end gloriously at an early age.

Seeger's poetry was not published until 1917, a year after his death.

Reviews

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both this text “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” and a similar poem “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay have many similarities and differences, and they each provide their own unique feeling when reading. To begin, an example of similarities between the two poems is that both relate to the concept of death. In “I Have a Rendezvous with Death”, the narrator knows that he is going to die because it mentions being taken into a dark land, which is commonly connected to death and the afterlife. Another visible similarity is how both poems are connected to the first person. The poem “If We Must Die” displays the narrator and a group of people that is inferred by the pronoun “we” show their struggle to fight for their lives. Next, these two poems also have many differences from each other. An example is that both poems convey a different idea. In “I Have a Rendezvous with Death”, it follows how the narrator knows that life is nearing its end. In “If We Must Die”, the poem follows how the narrator doesn’t want to die in vain. As stated, in both poems “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay and “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger, there are many similarities, such as how both texts show that the narrator is likely going to die and how both poems are in the first person. Some differences are that both texts create their own sense of immersion and familiarize the readers with what is happening in the text.