Teasdale, Sara
Entry updated 1 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1884-1933) US poet, almost all of whose deeply felt though formally demure Poetry lies beyond the water margins of Fantastika. She is of sf interest almost exclusively for the vision of Pastoral Post-Holocaust quietude that drives "There Will Come Soft Rains" (July 1918 Harper's Magazine), so unmistakable a vision of the End of the World for humanity that there was a real fear the Sedition Act of 1918 might be invoked against Teasdale for this, and other poems directly inspired by World War One; they were all eventually assembled in Flame and Shadow (coll 1920), published the year the act was repealed. Its sensory impact – "There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground" – adds a salutary poignance to Teasdale's conclusion that no human being would survive to experience the new world: a finding, and an aftermath tonality, often encountered in the British post-War Scientific Romance.
The poem seems indeed to have had little impact on Genre SF until Ray Bradbury quoted it in full in his story "There Will Come Soft Rains" (6 May 1950 Collier's Magazine), which was almost simultaneously revised for incorporation into The Martian Chronicles (fixup 1950). [JC]
Sara Trevor Teasdale
born St Louis, Missouri: 8 August 1884
died New York: 29 January 1933
works (highly selected)
- Helen of Troy and Other Poems (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1911) [coll: hb/]
- Flame and Shadow (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920) [coll: contains first book publication of "There Will Come Soft Rains": hb/]
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