The collegiate venture, however, did not survive the year. William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 - June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Car. Published the following May, Letters of a Traveller scored a popular success, despite its cool critical reception. The astonishing immediate response to The Embargo sealed Peter Bryants determination to provide his son the humanistic education he himself had been denied. In addition, two causes for which he had crusaded elected him to their presidencies: the American Copyright Club (which he addressed in 1843) and the New York Society for the Abolition of the Punishment of Death. The sun beat on his head during the long speeches, rendering the old man slightly dizzy, yet, characteristically, he insisted on walking from the ceremony instead of riding in a carriage. The law is a hag, Charles wrote to his friend; besides, there are tricks in practice which would perpetually provoke disgust. Two Sedgwick brothers lived in New York City and sought to convince Bryant to relocate where any description of talent may find not only occupation but diversity of application. Meanwhile, Dana was growing concerned that Bryant, enmeshed in his practice and local political life, would let his talent sleep.. The shaping of Bryants mind and personality owed much to his family circumstances in Cummington, Massachusetts, a small village in the Berkshire hills carved from the forest scantly a generation before his birth. Just as the literati associated with the North American Review had, however briefly, helped make Boston the nations intellectual center, Bryant, as much as any other single figure, shifted that focus to New York. Born in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry early in his life. Even so, Bryant was a beloved and highly influential figure. In the 19th century, however, when the idea of Americas global Manifest Destiny rallied much popular support, it fared considerably better. Whichever date one might prefer, however, the poem attests that its author was engaged in a daring effort to stare into the abyss and courageously pronounce his creed. Henry Kirke White, virtually forgotten today, had a brief moment of great renown, though less for the merit of his lugubrious verse than for the controversy sparked by an attack on it in, For a youth jarred by unexpected bereavements, the notion of a universe without God as a moral arbiter or of life without a manifest ultimate purpose was perturbing. Indeed, he was careful to screen his poetic activities, lest the local inhabitants think he entertained lofty notions about himself or lacked a proper seriousness. At his death, all of New York City went into mourning for its most respected citizen, and eulogies poured forth as they had for no man of letters since Washington Irving, its native son, had died a generation earlier. Bryant himself, despite his lessening regard for it in later years, continued to acknowledge its position in his publics affection by always placing it first in the six collections of his poems issued in his lifetime. Although Cullen had proved himself an assiduous scholar, he had much left to master as a young adult trying to determine his place in the worldand his two and a half years at Worthington may have been more instructive than college. The son of a learned and highly respected physician, Bryant was exposed to English poetry in his father's vast library. With words of shame And taunts of scorn they join thy name. Ambitiously intended as a national publication, to be issued simultaneously in Boston and New York, it lost its first coeditor almost at once, and his successor, a Classics scholar working as a librarian at Harvard, quickly proved that the relationship with his partner in New York would not run smoothly. The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. Edward Channing, the chief editor, recognizing his potential importance to the journal, had solicited a commitment to spend a little time from your profession and give it to us. But Bryants major allegiance continued to be to his practice. The new Bryant, very much of his time, reflected the aesthetics and preoccupation with nature of the Romantics, coupled with the philosophical orientation of the Graveyard Poets. When Our Land Was New by Annette Wynne. Within a week, another horror began to swell with the first of over 1,000 deaths from a cholera epidemic in the city. The dispute taxed the editor, as did the managerial problems inherent in the doubling of the newspapers circulation during the war years. The birth of a third child, another boy, further squeezed financial prospects, and six months before young Cullens fifth birthday, the Bryants resumed residence with Sarahs parents. They were accompanied by their daughter Julia (who had learned Italian from her father) and one of Julias best friends. Background Information. Ironically, the trip that had been partly planned for Mrs. Bryants health almost caused her death when she was stricken by a respiratory infection in Naples. A visit to Robert Sedgwick in New York almost a half year before the obnoxious court ruling had, in fact, already waked thoughts of departing from the Berkshires. As a man of letters, too, though no longer consequential, he remained active. For a youth jarred by unexpected bereavements, the notion of a universe without God as a moral arbiter or of life without a manifest ultimate purpose was perturbing. This monumental work chanted praises to the body as well as to the soul, and found beauty and. Then news arrived that Leggett was physically and perhaps mentally ill; to save his investment in the paper, Bryant sailed for home, alone, in early 1836. Frank Gado, ed., in conjunction with Nicholas B. Stevens. XXII before sending it to the printer during the first weeks of 1809 as one of the supplementary poems in the second edition of The Embargo. I behold them for the first, And my heart swells, while the dilated sight. Born in 1794 in Massachusetts, William Cullen Bryant served as editor for the New York Evening Post for much of his life and was one of the most popular of the romantic poets to come out of America in the 19th Century. A great walker, he insisted on climbing 10 flights of stairs to his office instead of taking the elevator, and he made daily use of the barbells he had had crafted for him. Even so, his fiction deserves more respect than it has received. Instead, in spite of an onerous workload, it was proving a heady adventure. Bryant was an American poet and editor of the Evening Post. neglected on the list of fame! In addition, his wifes health was giving him concern, and he thought the sun of Southern Europe might be beneficial. But little of comparable appeal was submitted for later numbers, and Bryant found it necessary to draw down his meager file of poems and then to try his hand at writing a tale, A Pennsylvania Legend, in order to fill the magazine. A various language; for his gayer hours. Preoccupation with the conduct of his law office may not have been the only impediment. In William Cullen Bryant of his father stimulated "The Embargo" (1808), in which the 13-year-old poet demanded the resignation of President Jefferson. Friendship with the Sedgwick family of nearby Stockbridge increased that disaffection. A letter to a friend records his distress: it speaks of farming or a trade, possibly even blacksmithingan implausible option given spells of pulmonary weakness and his recurrent headachesas preferable to the law should he not realize his wish to resume under-graduate studies in New Haven the next term. (Their correspondence regarding this matter initiated a close friendship that would last for the rest of their lives). The newspapers demands on Bryants attention and energy during the 1830s had left none of either for poetry, but once the, yet he took care to comment that though the American could not match their idiosyncratic strengths, he was the one among all our contemporaries who has written the fewest things carelessly, and the most things well., Aware in his later years that his originality had ebbed, Bryant revisited the Classical magnificence he had loved as a youth. In 1842 he published The Fountain and Other Poems, all written after his return from Europe. Besides his more laborious academic studies, he delved into his fathers medical library, became a pretty good chemist by reading Lavoisier and performing experiments, and perused Linnaeus to gain a basic knowledge of botany. The two friends happily left these terrible scenes behind as they headed for Europe, and they spent delightful weeks in the Scottish remoteness. The elder dames, thy haughty peers, Admire and hate thy blooming years. To Verplanck (who withdrew at the last moment) and Sands, he added his editorial associate on the Evening Post, William Leggett, along with novelists Catharine Sedgwick and James Kirke Paulding. Bryants talent for fiction is nowhere more evident than in The Indian Spring, published in The Talisman for 1830. That same month Williams College awarded him an honorary masters degree. . When Dana, his artistic conscience, warned that journalistic meddling in politics would stifle his poetry, Bryant famously answered that the paper would get only my mornings, and you know politics and a belly-full are better than poetry and starvation. But Bryants reply may have been somewhat disingenuous. Remembering the encounter many years later, he claimed he heard Nature for the first time speak with a dynamic authenticity: Wordsworths language suddenly gushed like a thousand springs. Quite probably, though, Wordsworths full effect did not hit until some time after Bryant had begun studying law in Worthington. Once diffident in nature, he had developed a knack for acting as a catalyst. The Evening Wind by William Cullen Bryant American literature was showing its first signs of maturity, but it still missed a poet whose work could stand comparison with British rivals; The Ages nominated Bryant as that poet. Worried about the possibility of financial ruin, he had just obtained a license to practice law in New York as insurance against calamity, but journalism posed a happier alternative. The American poet and newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) helped introduce European romanticism into American poetry. Carefully reasoned and balanced, these pronouncements warrant comparison with Emersons The American Scholar of a decade later as a charter for national literary achievement. He had instantly recognized Lincoln as a man of greatness when they met in 1859, and it was Bryant who introduced the Westerner to New Yorkers in the pivotal Cooper Union speech. When he and Leupp returned to New York for seven weeks before sailing for Liverpool, he again glimpsed mankinds worst aspects. In the 19th century, however, when the idea of Americas global Manifest Destiny rallied much popular support, it fared considerably better. In prayer services he conducted for his family every morning and every evening, he made certain that religious precepts informed the Bryant childrens upbringing. The New York of that time rather resembled the cities of Europe in its evolution of a cultural coterie, and Bryant had rapidly become one of its most prestigious members. At once, new vexations arose: William Colemans widow demanded immediate payment from him on the mortgage she held for the newspaper, and the Jackson administration failed to make good a promised diplomatic appointment. 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