[Roger Slater]

Archibald MacLeish was the Librarian of Congress.

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Archibald MacLeish was the Librarian of Congress.

Ah, yes. And Dag Hamarskold wrote some poetry. And I don't know a great deal about Vaclav Havel's work; perhaps that includes poetry as well.

[Ann Drysdale]

Can you come forward to include du Bellay?

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

Can you come forward to include du Bellay?

Yes! (And I'm tempted to throw in Christine de Pizan, though she didn't really have a government position, just court patrons.)

[Catherine Chandler]

Let's not forget the women!

Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Gabriela Mistral worked as a diplomat in the Chilean Foreign Service, where she became an ambassador-at-large for Latin American Culture. She represented Chile as honorary consul in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United States before and during World War II.

Like Mike Juster, she wrote under a pseudonym. Her birth name was Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga.

[Susan McLean]

For the record, Milton was an important public servant for the Commonwealth (which nearly got him killed when Charles II came to power) and Andrew Marvell was a Member of Parliament and was active in saving Milton's life.

Susan

[Roger Slater]

And then there's WB Yeats, who served as an Irish senator.

[Susan McLean]

Lord Byron was a member of the House of Lords and spoke on behalf of the frame breakers, workers who were trying to defend their livelihood by disabling the machines that were displacing them.

Susan

[RCL]

And recently, Dana Gioia, half Mexican and half Italian.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

Max, have you got any names of specific Greeks, or hints about how to look for them?

I'd start with the biggies: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander.

I believe, though I'm not quickly finding confirmation online, that all poet-dramatists (or at least the ones who contributed to the tragic festivals, which might leave out Aristophanes and Menander) were exempted from the military because their plays were considered an equivalent public service. As Aeschylus was a famous soldier, the exemption may have been a latish development, or he may have waived the exemption.

A quick glance at Sophocles's Wikipedia entry suggests that "he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena [sic? Athens?], helping to manage the finances of the city[, and later] he was elected one of the ten generals, executive officials at Athens."