Bishop, Elizabeth. The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1968. Print.

Content:

This 44 page ballad, or poem story, tells the tale of a young man who grew up in Rio de Janerio. All he ever wanted was to be a gangster like the ones you see in the movies, but things do not go as planned. Soon he is on the run from la policia, but would rather do his time running from false authority than behind the bars of a prison cell. His poor aunt “raised him to be honest,” but he still chose to rob from people, causing the police to chase after him.

This ballad, while following the story of Micuçú, also follows Bishop’s detail oriented style. She describes the people who come to watch Micuçú’s last run from the police; she describes the rich people with their binoculars watching on as if this were a spectator sport; she describes how one of the members of the army shoots his commanding officer, killing him. But they press on in attempts to catch Micuçú, although it turns out "He wasn't much of a burglar/ He got caught six times--or more."

Previous Publications:

This poem was previously published in Elizabeth Bishop’s Questions of Travel.

Critical Reaction:

“Due to its formal structure and its exceptional length, the poem I propose to analyze falls somewhat outside of the Bishopian canon. Indeed, throughout the numerous critical studies now available on Bishop, it is seldom dignified with more than passing remarks. Bishop’s only experiment with the form of the ballad, “The Burglar of Babylon” [Bishop 112-18] 1 does not, however, owe this critical oversight to its formal characteristics per se...some of her greatest achievements are nonetheless to be found among poems that meet various formal constraints.”

Nesme, Axel. “The Ballad Revisited.” Cercles 12. http://www.cercles.com/n12/nesme.pdf

“An initially cool, detached description of touristic and exotic details gradually yields to an interest in Brazilian history, art and culture, an empathy with the sufferings brought by colonization to indigenous people and then – especially in her ballad “The Burglar of Babylon” – to a sensitive analysis of inequities still apparent in our social system.”

Ribeiro de Oliveira, Solange. “Intermediately In Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetry.” http://ppgi.posgrad.ufsc.br/files/2014/10/reaa-39-SOLANGE-RIBEIRO.pdf