Alan Seeger
1888 –
1916
Alan Seeger was born in New York City on June 22, 1888, and received a BA from Harvard University in 1910. Known for his poetic representation of the First World War, he was the author of Poems (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916) and Letters and Diary of Alan Seeger (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917), both published posthumously. In a review for The Egoist in 1917, T. S. Eliot wrote that Poems “is high-flown, heavily decorated and solemn, but the solemnity is thoroughgoing, not a mere literary formality.” After joining the French Foreign Legion in 1914, Seeger was killed in action in northern France on July 4, 1916.