William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 - June 12, 1878) was an American poet and newspaper editor, who was among the most influential journalists of the 19th century.

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). Photo by Matthew Brady (1823-1896). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Life

Overview

Bryant was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, the son of a doctor. His 1st poem was Thanatopsis, 1817, which was greeted as the best poem produced in America up to that time. After being a lawyer for some time he was induced to exchange law for journalism, and acted as editor of various periodicals. Among his best known poems are "Lines to a Water-fowl," "The Rivulet," "The West Wind," "The Forest Hymn," "The Fringed Gentian," etc. Bryant also produced a blank-verse translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey. His muse is tender and graceful, pervaded by a contemplative melancholy, and a love of solitude and the silence of the woods. Though he was brought up to admire Pope, and in his early youth imitated him, he was 1 of the earliest American poets to throw off Pope's influence. He had a high sense of duty, was a prominent and patriotic citizen, and enjoyed the esteem and even the reverence of his fellow-countrymen.

William Cullen Bryant

Bryant was editor-in-chief of the New York Evening Post, a career that spanned 50 years. He was a widely read, and popular, figure of the era. Historian Vernon Louis Parrington, in Main Currents in American Thought (1927), called Bryant "the father of nineteenth century American journalism as well as the father of nineteenth century American poetry ."

Youth and education

Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, the 2nd son of Sarah (Snell) and Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator. His maternal ancestry traced back to passengers on the Mayflower and his father's to colonists who arrived about a dozen years later. Although raised in the Calvinist heritage, his father broke with tradition by joining the more liberal denomination of Unitarianism. However, the Bryant family was united in their zeal for Federalist politics, a party headed by Alexander Hamilton in the late 18th century. Some Federalists, who believed in a strong national government, were at that time also pro-British.

Encouraged by his father to write poetry, the young neophyte penned a Federalist satire on then-President Thomas Jefferson called, The Embargo (1808). (Jefferson was not only a leader of the Democratic-Republicans, a party that opposed the Federalists, but he also upheld an embargo on trade with Great Britain). The poem was published by his father, then a Massachusetts state legislator. In later years, as a firmly established liberal, Bryant put distance between himself and the piece and it was never reprinted in any of his poetry collections.

In 1810, he entered Williams College, but left after a year. He furthered his education by studying with a lawyer near Cummington, as this was an established practice at that time. He was admitted to the bar in 1815, at the age of 20.

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William Cullen Bryant Homestead, Cummington, Massachusetts, (2006)

From 1816 to 1825, he practiced law in Plainfield and Great Barrington, Massachusetts, but felt ill-suited for the law profession as he would "be troubled when he witnessed injustice in the court system and could not correct wrongs done to those whom he believed innocent."

Marriage and career

On January 11, 1821, at the age of 26, Bryant married Francis Fairchild. They had two daughters, Frances and Julia. In 1825, the family moved to New York City, where Bryant decided to use his literary skills to pursue a career in journalism. The family also owned a home they called Cedarmere, on Long Island's Hempstead Harbor, where Bryant would engage in his favorite past time, taking long walks in the woods. The family frequently took trips abroad and when his wife fell ill in Italy, Bryant treated her with homeopathic remedies. Bryant's wife died in 1866. Bryant survived his wife by twelve years, working well into his 70's.

With the help of a distinguished and well-connected literary family, the Sedgwicks, he gained a foothold in New York City, where, in 1825, he was hired as editor, first of the New York Review, then of the United States Review and Literary Gazette. After two years, he became Assistant Editor of the New York Evening Post, a newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton that was surviving precariously. Within two years, he was Editor-in-Chief and a part owner.

As an editor, he exerted considerable influence in support of liberal causes of the day, including antislavery, and free trade among nations. His editorials, decrying the corruption of the rich, were popular with the working class. In 1835, he wrote an editorial called The Right of Workmen to Strike, in which he upheld the worker's right to collective bargaining and ridiculed the prosecution of labor unions. "Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity or justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix…the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery we have forgotten its definition."

When the Free Soil Party became a core of the new Republican Party in 1856, Bryant vigorously campaigned for John C. Fremont. In 1860, he was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln, whom he introduced at a speech at Cooper Union. (That speech was instrumental in supporting Lincoln for the nomination, and then the presidency.)

Later years

In his last decade, Bryant shifted from writing his own poetry to translating Homer. He assiduously worked on translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey from 1871 to 1874. He is also remembered as one of the principal authorities on homeopathy and as a hymnist for the Unitarian Church - both legacies of his father's enormous influence on him. He was a sought-after speaker and delivered eulogies at the funerals of novelist James Fenimore Cooper and Samuel F.B. Morse, a leading figure in telegraph communications.

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"Cedarmere," William Cullen Bryant's estate in Roslyn, NY

Bryant died in New York City, of complications from an accidental fall.

Writing

Influences and poetry

"Thanatopsis," (literally "view of death") Bryant's most famous poem, was written when he was only 17 years of age. The poem's underlying theme, which equates humanity's mortality with nature's transience, is noted for being "un-Christian-like" for its time. In form and tone, it reflects the influence of English "graveyard" poets such as Thomas Gray and the neoclassic poet Alexander Pope. Soon after writing Thanatopsis, Bryant was influenced by romantic British poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Many of Bryant's poems reflect his love for nature. Like the Romantics, he saw nature as a vital force in humanity's life. Poems written in that vein include: "Green River," "A Winter Piece," "The Death of Flowers," and "The Prairies."

"Thanatopsis," although mistakenly attributed to his father initially, was published by the North American Review in 1817, and was well received. Its closing stanza advises someone on the threshold of death to:

So live, that, when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave--

Like one that draws the drapery of his couch

About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.

His debut collection, simply entitled Poems, was published in 1821, and contains his longest poem, The Ages, consisting of 35 Spenserian stanzas tracing the evolution of western civilization. Stanza 6 reads:

Look on this beautiful world and read the truth

In her fair page; see, every season brings

New change to her of everlasting youth;

Still the green soil with joyous living things

Swarms; the wide air is full of joyous wings;

And myriads still are happy in the sleep

Of Ocean's azure gulfs and where he flings

The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep

In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep.

Like other writers of the era, Bryant was seeking a uniquely singular American voice with his writing, which could be set apart from the culture of the mother country, England. In a lecture before the New York Athenaeum Society (1826), he said that poetic models of the past "which the poet chooses to follow should be used only as guides to his own originality." Bryant felt that although America did not have the historical and cultural heritage to draw upon as in England, a poet should draw on "the best the young country has to offer." By 1932, Bryant had accomplished this goal himself, when--with the assistance of the already established literary figure, Washington Irving, who helped him publish Poems in England – he won recognition as America's leading poet.

Recognition

Although after his death his literary reputation declined, Bryant holds the distinction of being one of the first American poets to receive international renown.

In 1884, New York City's Reservoir Square, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, was renamed Bryant Park in his honor. The city later named the William Cullen Bryant High School in his honor.

A park in East York, a suburb of Toronto, Canada, bears the name of Cullen Bryant Park as well.

Legacy

Although he is now thought of as a New Englander, Bryant, for most of his lifetime, was thoroughly a New Yorker – and a very dedicated one at that. He was a major force behind the idea that became Central Park, as well as a leading proponent of creating the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had close affinities with the Hudson River School of art and was an intimate friend of Thomas Cole. He defended the immigrant, and championed the rights of workers to form labor unions.

New York Medical College owes its founding, in 1860, to the vision of a group of civic leaders led by Bryant, who were particularly concerned with the condition of hospitals and medical education. They believed that medicine should be practiced with greater sensitivity to the patients. The school opened as the New York Homeopathic Medical College.

It would be difficult to find a sector of the city's life that he did not work to improve.

Reputation

As a writer, Bryant was an early advocate of American literary nationalism, and his own poetry focusing on nature as a metaphor for truth established a central pattern in the American literary tradition. Yet his literary reputation began to fade in the decade after the 19th century's midpoint, and the rise of the new poets in the 20th century not only cast Bryant into the shadows but made him an example of all that was wrong with poetry.

A recently-published book, however, argues that a reassessment is long overdue. It finds merit in a couple of short stories Bryant wrote while trying to build interest in periodicals he edited. More importantly, it recognizes him as a poet of great technical sophistication who was a progenitor of Walt Whitman, to whom he was a mentor.

Publications

Poetry

• The Embargo, or Sketches of the Times: A satire, by a youth of thirteen (anonymous), Boston: private, 1808; second edition, corrected and enlarged as The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times: A satire . . . Together with The Spanish Revolution and other poems']' (as Bryant), Boston: Printed for the author by E.G. House, 1809.
• Poems. Cambridge, MA: Printed by Hilliard & Metcalf, 1821.
• Poems, by William Cullen Bryant, An American (edited by Washington Irving). New York: E. Bliss, 1832; London: J. Andrews, 1832; enlarged edition, Boston: Russell, Odiorne & Metcalf, 1834
  • third edition (enlarged again). New York: Harper, 1836;
  • enlarged again, New York: Harper, 1839
• Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of Washington. Ode. New York, 30 April 1839.
• The Fountain and other poems. New York & London: Wiley & Putnam, 1842.
• The White-Footed Deer and other poems. New York: I.S. Pratt, 1844.
• Poems: Collected and arranged by the author. (1 volume) Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1848;
  • (3 volumes), New York: D. Appleton 1862.

• Thirty Poems. New York & London: D. Appleton, 1864.
• Hymns N.p., 1864.
• The Little People of the Snow. New York: D. Appleton, 1873.
• Poems: Collected and arranged by the author. London: Henry S. King (Author's Edition), 1873.
• Poems. New York: D. Appleton, 1876.
• The Poetical Works (edited by Parke Godwin). (2 volumes), New York: D. Appleton, 1883, 1884.

Non-fiction

• An Oration, Delivered at Stockbridge. July 4th 1820. Stockbridge: Printed by Charles Webster, 1820.
• Popular Considerations on Homoeopathia. New York: W. Radde, 1841.
• A Funeral Oration, Occasioned by the Death of Thomas Cole: Delivered before the National Academy of Design, New-York, May 4, 1848. New York: D. Appleton / Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 1848.
• Letters of a Traveller; or, Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America. New York: Putnam, 1850.
• Reminiscences of the Evening Post: Extracted from the Evening Post of November 15, 1851, with Additions and Corrections by the Writer. New York: William C. Bryant, Printers, 1851.
• Letters of a Traveller: Second series. New York: D. Appleton, 1859.
• A Discourse on the Life, Character and Genius of Washington Irving: Delivered before the New York Historical Society, at the Academy of Music in New York on the 3d of April, 1860. New York: Putnam, 1860.
• Letters from the East. New York: Putnam, 1869.
• Some Notices of the Life and Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck, Read Before the New York Historical Society, on the 3d of February, 1869. New York, 1869.
• A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Delivered Before the New-York Historical Society, May 17th, 1870. New York: Printed for the Society, 1870.
• Orations and Addresses. New York: Putnam, 1873.
• A Popular History of the United States: From the first discovery of the western hemisphere by the Northmen, to the end of the first century of the Union of the States (4 volumes, by Bryant and Sidney Howard Gay). New York: Scribners, 1876- 1881.

Anthologized

• Miscellaneous Poems Selected from the United States Literary Gazette (includes 26 poems by Bryant). Boston: Cummings, Hilliard/Harrison Gray, 1826.
• "The Skeleton's Cave" and "Medfield," in Tales of Glauber-Spa, (2 volumes, by Bryant, William Leggett, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and James Kirke Paulding, as Francis Herbert). New York: Harper, 1832, I: 193-239, 243-276.

Collected editions

• Life and Works (edited by Parke Godwin). (6 volumes), New York: D. Appleton, 1883. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV, Volume V, Volume VI.
• Prose Writings (edited by Parke Godwin). New York: D. Appleton, 1884. Volume II.

Translated

• The Iliad of Homer (translated by Bryant). (2 volumes), Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1870. Volume 1, Volume II.
• The Odyssey of Homer (translated by Bryant). (2 volumes), New York: James R. Osgood, 1871, 1872. Volume I, Volume II.

Edited

• The Talisman (edited, with contributions by Bryant, Robert Sands, and Gulian Verplanck, as Francis Herbert). (3 volumes), New York: Elam Bliss, 1827, 1828, 1829.
• A New Library of Poetry and Song. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1870.
• Picturesque America (edited by Bryant). New York: D. Appleton, 1872-1874.

Letters

• Letters (edited by William Cullen Bryant III and Thomas G. Voss). (6 volumes), New York: Fordham University Press, 1975-1992.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

"Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant

See also

• The Knickerbocker poets
• The Fireside poets
• List of U.S. poets
• Translators of Homer

References

• Brown, Charles Henry. 1971. William Cullen Bryant. New York: Scribner. ISBN 9780684123707
• Bryant, William Cullen, Frank Gado, and Nicholas B. Stevens. 2006. William Cullen Bryant an American Voice. Hartford, VT: Antoca. ISBN 1584656190
• Muller, Gilbert H. 2008. William Cullen Bryant: Author of America. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780791474679
• "Willam Cullen Bryant." 1998. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Gale Research.
• "William Cullen Bryant." 1999. Business Leader Profiles for Students. Gale Research.

External links

Poems

• 5 poems by Bryant: "The Death of the Flowers," "June," "March," "A Song for New Year's Eve," "October"
• William Cullen Bryant 1794-1878 at the Poetry Foundation
• William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) info & 5 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) at Sonnet Central (6 sonnets)
• William Cullen Bryant at Poets' Corner (13 poems)
• 18 Poems and Songs by William Cullen Bryant Angelfire.com/ks.
• William Cullen Bryant at PoemHunter (138 poems)
• William Cullen Bryant at AllPoetry (139 poems)
• William Cullen Bryant at Poetry Nook (302 poems)

Audio / video

• William Cullen Bryant at YouTube

Books

• Works by William Cullen Bryant at Project Gutenberg
• Works by William Cullen Bryant at the Internet Archive
• Bryant's edition of The Odyssey
• William Cullen Bryant at Amazon.com
• Works by or about William Cullen Bryant in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

About

• William Cullen Bryant in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• William Cullen Bryant at Strangers to Us All: Lawyers and poetry
• Mr. Lincoln and Friends: William Cullen Bryant Mrlincolnandnewyork.org. Retrieved December 10, 2007.
• Yarborough, Wynn. 1994. Essay on William Cullen Bryant Vcu.edu. Retrieved December 10, 2007.
• William Cullen Bryant at Find a Grave
• William Cullen Bryant Homestead Thetrustees.org. Retrieved December 10, 2007.

This article uses content from the New World Encyclopedia