James Gates Percival (1793-1856), from The Poetical Works of James Gates Percival, 1859. Courtesy Internet Archive.
Dr. James Gates Percival (September 15, 1795 - May 2, 1856) was an American poet and physician.[1]
Life[]
Overview[]
Percival, born at Berlin, Connecticut, was a precocious child, and a morbid and impractical, though versatile man, with a fatal facility in writing verse on all manner of subjects and in nearly every known meter. His sentimentalism appealed to a wide circle, but his was 1 of the tapers which were extinguished by Lowell. He had also a reputation as a geologist. His poetic works include Prometheus and The Dream of a Day (1843).[2]
Youth and education[]
Percival was born in Berlin, Connecticut, September 15, 1795. His father, James Percival, was a physician.[3]
He entered Yale College at the age of 16, and graduated at the age of 20 at the head of his class,[4] in 1815, when a tragedy (Zamor) written by himself formed part of the commencement exercises. He then studied medicine, graduating from Yale in 1820.[3]
Career[]
After graduating he was admitted to the practice of medicine and relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, where he pursued that profession.[4]
Several years of his labor were devoted to assisting Noah Webster in editing his great American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828.[4] Percival had unusual linguistic attainments and enjoyed imitating in English "all known metres in all accessible languages from the Sanskrit downwards."[3]
As early as 1821 he published a volume of poems, which contained the 1st part of Prometheus; in 1822 the 2nd part of Prometheus and the 1st part of Clio appeared; in 1823 he published a volume of poems (republished the next year in London in 2 volumes). He also contributed largely to periodicals.[3]
In 1824 he was appointed assistant surgeon in the United States Army and detailed to the West Point Military Academy as professor of chemistry. He resigned in a few months and was appointed a surgeon with the recruiting service at Boston, Massachusetts; in 1827 he settled in New Haven, Connecticut.[3]
In 1835, with Charles Upham Shepard, he made a mineralogical and geological survey of the state of Connecticut, the report of which was published in 1842. The American Mining Company engaged him to survey their lead-mining region in Wisconsin; in 1854 he was appointed state geologist of Wisconsin.[3]
Percival never married, cared little for society, and was said never to be so happy as when "with a book in his library, or the geologist's hammer in his hand," he set about acquiring knowledge. He accumulated a large store of books, offered by his executor for $20,000, and sold in 1860.[3]
He died in Hazel Green, Wisconsin, May 2, 1856.[3]
A "Biographical Sketch" of Percival from the MSS. of Erasmus North, M. D., was published in the collection of Percival's works; another biography is The Life of James Gates Percival, by Julius H. Ward (1866).[3]
Writing[]
His work was widely reviewed and he was regarded as a poet of a high order. In 1859 his poetical works were brought together and published in 2 volumes.[3]
Critical introduction[]
Percival typified that crude manifestation of Romanticism, the self-constituted, self-conscious poetic genius. Similarly, he typified the poetic mood that is without the poetic reason. The stuff of him is preeminently the stuff of poetry, but unclarified, uncontrolled, unorganized. It is often as if the personalities of Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Moore, and Bryant had been merged into a helpless hypnoidal state of metrical and emotional garrulity. Yet every now and then an open-minded reader is surprised by some 1st-hand observation, some graceful analogy, some picturesqueness or energy, some short lyric cry; and once at least he wrought a little gem — his simple stanzas on "Seneca Lake."[5]
He typified, too, a not altogether ignoble phase of earlier American culture in his zealous acquisitiveness, both in science (he died as state geologist of Wisconsin), and in languages (he wrote verse in Scandinavian and German, and translated from innumerable tongues). But he belongs chiefly to the student of human nature; lonely, shy, unmarried, disappointed, poor, and dirty, he was in appearance and mode of life a character for Dickens, in heart and soul a character for Thackeray or George Eliot. Lowell pilloried him in an essay; Bryant was perhaps juster in his kindlier obituary criticism in Evening Post. He was once a famous man.[5]
Recognition[]
- A short poem by him, "The Language of Flowers," was set to music by English composer Edward Elgar at the age of 14.[6]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Poems. New Haven, CT: A.H. Maltby, 1821.
- Clio
- Volume I. Charleston, SC: S. Babcock, 1822.
- Volume II. New Haven, CT: S. Converse, 1822.
- Volumes I-III. New York: G. & C. Carville, 1827.
- Prometheus, Part II, with other poems. New Haven, CT: printed by A.H. Maltby, 1822.
- Poems. New York: Charles Wiley, 1823; London: John Miller, 1824.
- Poem Delivered before the Connecticut Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Boston: Richardson & Lord, 1826.
- The Dream of a Day, and other poems. New Haven, CT: S. Babcock, 1843.
- Poetical Works]. (2 volumes), Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1859. Volume I, Volume II
Play[]
- Zamor: A tragedy. New Haven, CT: privately published, printed by A.H. Maltby, 1821.
- The Sister Spirits: A cantata. New Haven, CT: S. Babcock, 1843.
Non-fiction[]
- Oration ... on some of the moral and political truths derivable from the study of history. New Haven, CT: printed by A.H. Maltby, 1822.
Letters[]
- Uncollected Letters, 1795-1856. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1959.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[7]
The World is Full of Poetry, Fairfax Choral Society, March 19, 2013
See also[]
References[]
- Howard Atwood Kelly, "Percival, James Gates," American Medical Biographies, 1920, 907. Wikisource, Web, Feb. 19, 2018.
Notes[]
- ↑ James Gates Percival, NNDB. Soylent Communications. Web, Mar. 31, 2013.
- ↑ John William Cousin, "Percival, James Gates," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 301. Wikisource, Web, Feb. 18, 2018.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 Kelly, 907.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 James Gates Percival, Wikipedia, October 19, 2017, Wikimedia Foundation. Web, Feb. 19, 2018.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 James Gates Percival, "Bryant and the Minor Poets," Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume XV: Colonial and revolutionary literature; early national literature, Part I. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons / Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1907-1921. Bartleby.com, Web, Feb. 19, 2018.
- ↑ Diana McVeagh, Elgar the Music Maker, p. 3
- ↑ Search results = au:James Gates Percival, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 3, 2016.
External links[]
- Poems
- "New Year's Ode to Liberty"
- James Gates Percival (1795-1856) at Sonnet Central (2 sonnets)
- James Gates Percival in An American Anthology 1787-1900: "Elegaic," "The Coral Grove," "New England"
- Gates Percival at PoemHunter (6 poems)
- James Gates Percival info & 9 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
- James Gates Percival at Poetry Nook (435 poems)
- Books
- James Gates Percival at Amazon.com
- About
- James Gates Percival at NNDB
- James Gates Percival in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature.
- James Gates Percival - An anecdotal sketch and a bibliography at Internet Archive
- The Life and Letters of James Gates Percival at Internet Archive
This article uses public domain text from American Medical Biographies, 1920. Original aritcle is at Percival, James Gates
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