{{short description|American flying ace and academic}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}} {{Infobox military person | honorific_prefix = | name = Francis Peabody Magoun | honorific_suffix = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = Francis Peabody Magoun.jpg | image_size = 250 | alt = | caption = Francis Peabody Magoun, 1918 | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1895|01|05}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1979|06|05|1895|01|05}} | birth_place = New York, New York | death_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts | burial_place = | burial_label = | burial_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|display=inline,title}} --> | nickname = | birth_name = | allegiance = {{flag|United States|23px}} | branch = [[Royal Air Force]] (United Kingdom) | unit = Royal Air Force * [[No. 1 Squadron RAF]] | battles = [[File:World War I Victory Medal ribbon.svg|50px]] [[World War I]] | awards = [[Military Cross]], [[Order of the Lion of Finland]] | alma_mater = [[Harvard University]] }}
'''Francis Peabody Magoun Jr.''' [[Military Cross|MC]] (6 January 1895 – 5 June 1979) was one of the seminal figures in the study of [[medieval]] and [[English literature]] in the 20th century, a scholar of subjects as varied as soccer and [[ancient Germanic]] naming practices, and translator of numerous important texts. Though an [[United States|American]], he served in the British [[Royal Flying Corps]] (later [[Royal Air Force]]) as a [[lieutenant]] during [[World War I]]. Magoun was victor in five aerial combats and was also decorated with Britain's [[Military Cross]] for gallantry.
==Early life and military career== Magoun was born to a prosperous family in [[New York, New York|New York City]]. His parents were Francis Peabody Magoun (1865–1928) and Jeanne C. Bartholow (1870–1957). He received his primary education at the [[St. Andrew's School (Concord, Massachusetts)|St. Andrew's School]] in [[Concord, Massachusetts|Concord]], [[Massachusetts]], and at the [[Noble and Greenough School]] in [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]]. He took his [[bachelors]] degree at [[Harvard]] in (1916), and in February of that year signed on with the [[American Field Service]]. From 3 March – 3 August he was a volunteer ambulance driver.
After a brief return to the United States, he went to [[London]] and enlisted in the [[Royal Flying Corps]] (to become eligible for service in the RAF, he lied and said he was Canadian; he claimed that he was from a town there where all birth records and other vital statistics had been lost in a fire). On 4 July 1917, he was commissioned a [[second lieutenant]] and assigned to [[No. 1 Squadron RFC]] on 14 November, flying [[Nieuport]] biplanes (later replaced by [[SE5a]] biplanes) against more manoeuvrable [[Fokker]] triplanes. He downed his first enemy aircraft on 28 February 1918, near [[Gheluvelt]], another on 10 March {{convert|15|mi|km|spell=in}} east of [[Ypres]], and a third on 15 March in the vicinity of [[Dadizeele]]. His fourth was on 28 March near [[Quiery]]. He was wounded in action while strafing enemy troops on 10 April, but returned to his squadron in October and became an [[flying ace|ace]] on 28 October, downing a [[Fokker D.VII]] near [[Anor]] for his fifth victory.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Hudson | first = James J. | title = Lt. Frances Peabody Magoun Jr.: An American Ace in the RFC | journal = Cross & Cockade | volume = 34 | issue = 1 | year = 2003 | url = http://www.crossandcockade.com/pdf/magoun.pdf | access-date = 11 June 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070927193502/http://www.crossandcockade.com/pdf/magoun.pdf | archive-date = 27 September 2007 | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title = Francis Peabody Magoun | publisher = The Aerodrome | year = 2009 | url = http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/magoun.php | access-date =11 June 2009}}</ref>
Magoun was awarded the [[Military Cross]] (MC) in June 1918: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When engaged on bombing work he attacked and shot down an enemy machine, with the result that it crashed to earth. He has also engaged massed enemy troops and transport with machine gun fire from low altitudes, throwing the enemy into the utmost confusion and inflicting heavy casualties. His work has been carried out with consistent keenness and tenacity."<ref>(MC citation, Supplement to the London Gazette, 22 June 1918)</ref>
==Scholarly career== [[File:Fpm21930.jpg|alt=Francis P. Magoun Jr. in 1930|thumb|Francis P. Magoun Jr. in 1930]] Upon his return to the United States, he was appointed instructor in Comparative Literature at Harvard (1919); during this period, he completed his [[PhD]] in [[philology]] at [[Harvard University]] with his 1923 dissertation on [[Alexander Romance#English versions|two English version]] of the ''[[Historia de preliis]]''.<ref>''The gest of Alexander: Two middle English alliterative fragments, Alexander A and Alexander B, translated from a J2-recension of the Historia de Preliis''.</ref> His work was also part of the [[Art competitions at the 1936 Summer Olympics#Literature|literature event]] in the [[Art competitions at the 1936 Summer Olympics|art competition]] at the [[1936 Summer Olympics]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/921568 |title=Francis Peabody Magoun |work=Olympedia |access-date=12 August 2020}}</ref>
At Harvard, he was made Instructor of English, and proceeded through the academic ranks thereafter (Professor of Comparative Literature, 1937; Professor of English, 1951).<ref>{{cite book | last = The President and Fellows of Harvard College | title = Historical Register of Harvard University 1636-1936 | publisher = Harvard UP | year = 1937 | location = Cambridge | url = http://www.math.harvard.edu/history/officers/officers.txt }}</ref> His tweedy figure was familiar on campus; he was rumored to have no office, and it was said he could only be spoken to while walking.<ref>{{cite news | last = Kenvin | first = Roger Lee | title = Remembering Harvard, 1949-1950 | work = Harvard Gazette | date = 4 June 1998 | url = http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/06.04/RememberingHarv.html | access-date =11 June 2009}}</ref>
He was distinguished by a longstanding interest in popular [[antiquities]]. Along with [[Alexander Haggerty Krappe]], he was the first scholarly translator of the [[Folklore|folktales]] collected by the [[Brothers Grimm]] into English. But he was also developing a theoretical and methodological framework for his eclectic interests. David Bynum, in his history of English studies at Harvard,<ref>{{cite web | last = Bynum | first = David E. | title = Four Generations of Oral Literary Studies at Harvard University; Child's Legacy Enlarged: Oral Literary Studies at Harvard Since 1856 | year = 1974 | url = http://www.chs.harvard.edu/mpc/about/bynum.html | access-date = 11 June 2009 | archive-date = 3 February 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070203012811/http://www.chs.harvard.edu/mpc/about/bynum.html | url-status = dead }}</ref> affirms Magoun's importance as a link between the pioneering work of [[George Lyman Kittredge]] in folklore and [[ethnomusicology]] (as they related to [[literary history]]) and the work of [[Milman Parry]]; Magoun took inspiration from Parry and Lord's field observation of the oral poetry of the [[guslar]]s of [[Yugoslavia]] (which they had compared to the [[Homeric poems]]), and extended their methods to the study of [[Old English|Anglo-Saxon]] [[poetry]]. The 1953 article on ''[[Beowulf]]'', "The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry," published in ''[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]]'', was of particular importance in the view of [[Albert Lord]] (for whom Magoun served as dissertation advisor; he was also one of [[Walter Ong]]'s teachers). Magoun argued that written Anglo-Saxon poetry was essentially a transcription of traditional oral performance, and furthermore, heavily imbued with pre-[[Christianity|Christian]] ideas and values. The position has implications for how Anglo-Saxon poetry should be approached for purposes of literary criticism. His ideas sparked ongoing controversy among medievalists, with some accepting his view, others arguing for a written poetry inspired by traditional idiom and methods (and a complex layering of Christian and pre-Christian influences), and still others insisting that the entire Anglo-Saxon corpus consists of individually authored, written texts with an exclusively Christian matrix of belief. The essay has been anthologized many times.
In late middle age, he undertook to learn the [[Finnish language]] in order to explore another area of oral tradition, and exercised considerable influence upon Finnish studies; contemporaries remember the growing library of Finnish texts in his house on Reservoir Street. His 1963 prose translation of the ''[[Kalevala]]'' remains a standard, and he was awarded the [[Finland|Finnish]] [[Order of the Lion of Finland]] in 1964 for his contributions to the study of Finnish culture.
He retired from Harvard in 1961, and he was honored at the close of his career with a well-regarded ''[[Festschrift]]'': ''Franciplegius; medieval and linguistic studies in honor of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr.'', edited by Jess B. Bessinger and Robert Payson Creed.
In a legend circulating among medievalists, Magoun is said to have been the model for the character [[Mr. Magoo]].<ref>According to John P. Walter, the archivist for the [[Walter Ong]] archive ([[Saint Louis University (United States)|St. Louis University]]) - in ''johnwalter.blogspot.com'' : [https://johnwalter.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_archive.html FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2005]</ref> However, there is no evidence that artist [[John Hubley]] knew the scholar.
==Family life== Magoun married Margaret Boyden on 30 June 1926, in Winnetka, Illinois. Their children were Francis Peabody Magoun III (1927–1999; m. Faith Gowen); William Cowper Boyden Magoun (1928–2014; m. Patricia Lavezzorio); Margaret Boyden Magoun (1932–2017; m. Guido Rothrauff); and Jean Bartholow Magoun (born 1937; m. Ward Farnsworth).
==Publications==
===Books=== * ''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 for 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}}.
===Articles=== *{{cite journal | last = Magoun Jr. | first = Francis P | title = The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry | journal = [[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]] | year = 1953 | volume = 28 | issue = 446–67 | pages = 446–467 | doi = 10.2307/2847021 | jstor = 2847021 | s2cid = 162903356 }} Rpt. in {{cite book | last = Nicholson | first = Lewis E. | title = An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism | publisher = University of Notre Dame Press | year = 1966 | location = Notre Dame | pages = 189–221 }} and in {{cite book | last = Fry Jr. | first = Donald K. | title = The Beowulf Poet: A Collection of Critical Essays | publisher = Prentice-Hall | year = 1968 | location = Englewood Cliffs | pages = 83–113 }}
==See also== {{Portal|Biography}} * [[List of World War I flying aces from the United States]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magoun, Francis Peabody}} [[Category:1895 births]] [[Category:1979 deaths]] [[Category:American folklorists]] [[Category:American literary critics]] [[Category:American World War I flying aces]] [[Category:American male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:Aviators from New York (state)]] [[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]] [[Category:Epic poetry collectors]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]] [[Category:Harvard University staff]] [[Category:Recipients of the Military Cross]] [[Category:Recipients of the Order of the Lion of Finland]] [[Category:Royal Flying Corps officers]] [[Category:Journalists from New York City]] [[Category:Noble and Greenough School alumni]] [[Category:Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America]] [[Category:Art competitors at the 1936 Summer Olympics]] [[Category:20th-century American male writers]]