Arthur Davison Ficke
Arthur Davison Ficke was an American poet and corporate lawyer, born on November 10, 1883, in Davenport, Iowa. He demonstrated an early interest in literature, becoming involved in his high school’s debating club and serving as the literary editor of the school newspaper. Ficke attended Harvard University, where he studied under notable philosophers and formed friendships that would influence his literary career, including a close relationship with Winter Bynner, who encouraged him to publish his work.
After graduating from Harvard in 1904, Ficke embarked on a worldwide expedition that inspired his first poetry collection. He briefly studied law at the University of Iowa and later joined his father's law firm while simultaneously pursuing a career in poetry. Ficke is perhaps best known for co-creating a literary hoax that parodied the Imagist movement and for his service in the U.S. Army during World War I, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel.
His later life was marked by personal challenges, including a battle with tuberculosis and a second marriage to Gladys Brown. Ficke's literary contributions focused on traditional poetic forms, particularly the sonnet, which he utilized skillfully in his work. He passed away in 1945 after struggling with throat cancer, leaving a legacy as a poet committed to conventional poetic structures amidst a rapidly changing literary landscape.
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Arthur Davison Ficke
Poet
- Born: November 10, 1883
- Birthplace: Davenport, Iowa
- Died: November 30, 1945
Biography
Arthur Davison Ficke was born in Davenport, Iowa, on November 10, 1883, to Charles A. Ficke, a wealthy German-born lawyer, and Frances Ficke, a local inhabitant who was an active member of her community. In 1896 as a freshman in Davenport High School, Ficke participated in the school’s debating club, eventually becoming its president. In his senior year of high school, he became the literary editor of the school’s newspaper, the Red and Blue, publishing five poems, two short stories, and two essays in it.
After graduating from high school in 1900, Ficke attended Harvard University, studying under William James and George Santayana. At Harvard he became friends with Winter Bynner, who encouraged him to publish his poetry. Ficke also wrote for the Advocate, one of the college’s literary magazines, becoming its president in his senior year. After graduating from Harvard in 1904, Ficke spent the next ten months with his family on a worldwide expedition. During this expedition, Ficke met Maurice Browne, who became Ficke’s lifelong publisher; Brown published Ficke’s earliest collection of poetry, From the Isles: A Series of Songs out of Greece, which was predominantly inspired by Ficke’s worldwide excursion.
In 1906 Ficke attended the University of Iowa for a law degree while teaching in the English department. In 1907, he joined his father’s law firm, working as a corporate lawyer. The same year he married Evelyn B. Blunt; they divorced in 1922. Ficke spent the next ten years as a corporate lawyer and a bohemian poet while visiting Chicago.
In 1916 Ficke joined Bynner and Marjorie Allen Sieffert to perpetrate a literary hoax. Together, they created the “Spectric” school, a parody of the ***********Imagist school of poetry. Their Spectric poems deliberately mocked the free verse popular at the time. The three poets submitted their poetry to various publications under pseudonyms, and the unwitting editors published these spoofs. In 1918, the ruse was exposed in an article written in the literary magazine Dial. Ficke and Bynner left for a tour of Japan before the hoax was fully realized.
In 1917, Ficke volunteered his services for the United States Army during World War I. He spent eighteen months in Paris serving in the Ordinance Department; he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and judge advocate. While Ficke served in Paris, he met Edna St.Vincent Millay, engaging in a brief love affair. Their relationship continued for the rest of their lives primarily through letters and poetry.
After his divorce in 1922, Ficke traveled extensively. In 1925 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis; consequently, he split his time between an estate in Hillsdale, New York, and a ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. During this time, Ficke married his second wife, Gladys Brown. Ficke spent his remaining years in these two locations, writing several more conventional collections of poetry. Ficke died in 1945 after suffering from throat cancer.
Ficke’s literary reputation is as a poet who sought to defend traditional poetic convention more than enhance it through change (as his notable contemporaries, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, did). Despite this conventionality, one of Ficke’s major contributions to American literature was his use of the sonnet form found primarily in Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter.