X. THE POETS. IN July, 1818, there appeared in the North American Review an essay on American poetry from the pen of William Cullen Bryant, in which he singled out and estimated those who up to that time had produced worthy verse on this side of the Atlantic. The list is singularly suggestive. The only poets he saw fit "to interrupt in their passage to oblivion," were the Rev. John Adams, Joseph Green, Francis Hopkinson, Dr. Church, Freneau; the Connecticut poets, Trumbull, Dwight, Barlow, Humphreys, and Hopkins; the youthful poet William Clifton, St. John Honeywood, and Robert Treat Paine. Of these poets, who were the bright particular representatives of American poetry almost at the end of the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century, scarcely one is to-day more than a mere name. One style may be said to characterize the work of all these poets. Bryant, in the essay mentioned, denounced the style of poetry then prevalent, "as in too many instances tinged with a sickly and affected imitation of the peculiar manner of the late popular poets of England." Pope, with his heroic couplets, dominated American verse long after the revolt of the English natural school had thrown off its chain. The first strong, original note in American poetry bell. came from Bryant. Although nurtured on the rhymes of Pope and Thomson, and writing his juvenile productions in heroic couplets, he was, never- 1777-1844. theless, the first influence that helped to Thomas Campfree our song from the "ten-linked chain." The publication of "Thanatopsis" in 1817, and of The Ages and Other Poems in 1821, marks an epoch in the history of our poetry. While American verse was thus making its first feeble beginnings, the firmament of English poetry was still glowing with the brilliant lights that had given glory to 1788-1824. Thomas Moore. Leigh Hunt. 1798-1845. 1770-1850. worth. Thomas Hood. William Words S. T. Coleridge. 1772-1834. Robert Southey. the second great creative period of English literature. In 1821, the birth year of 1774-1843. American literature in all its departments, since it witnessed the production of The Sketch Book, The Spy, and Bryant's first volume of poems, Keats had just finished his short but brilliant career, Shelley was to follow him a year later and Byron soon after, while Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey and scores of lesser lights were at the zenith, with Tennyson on the eastern horizon. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878). "Bryant's writings transport us into the depths of the solemn, primeval forest; to the shores of the lonely lake; to the banks of the wild, nameless stream; or the brow of the rocky upland rising like a promontory from amidst a wide ocean of foliage; while they shed around us the glories of a climate fierce in its extremes, but splendid in all its vicissitudes." Washington Irving. "Thanatopsis." "The Ages." "To a Waterfowl." "Death of the "The Flood of Flowers." Life (Parke Godwin's William Cullen Bryant, 1883, is the standard life of the poet; other Lives have been written by John Bigelow, in The American Men of Letters Series, 1890; by David J. Hill, in The American Authors Series, 1879; and by A. J. Symington. See also George William Curtis' Homes of Ameri can Authors, 1853; James Grant Wilson's Bryant and his Friends; R. H. Stoddard's the Iliad and the Homes and Haunts of our Elder Poets; Odyssey. and Bryant's "Boys of my Boyhood," St. Nicholas for December, 1876). Years." "The Voice of Autumn. Translation of Although the best part of Bryant's life-work was connected with New York, he belongs nevertheless to New England. Born in Cummington, Massachusetts, of the old Mayflower stock, he passed his boyhood and early manhood amid the Berkshire Hills, and his poems are as true to the New England landscape and spirit as are those of Whittier. Bryant's father was a physician of good education and scholarly habits. His home was isolated, and his children had but few social privileges, but to compensate in a measure for this, he had gathered a large library for the times, one in which the English poets seem to have been largely represented, and in this his family revelled during the long winter evenings. In the brief autobiographical fragment given in Godwin's Life of Bryant, the poet tells remarkable stories of the precocity of his family, but these can easily be believed when we remember the poet's own early achievements. He pro duced excellent verses in his early boyhood; at the age of thirteen we find him writing a satire on Jefferson's administration, so excellent that the public could not believe it the work of a mere boy; and at the age of seventeen he wrote "Thanatopsis," which is, perhaps, "the highwater mark of American poetry." In 1810 Bryant entered the class of 1813 in Williams College. "I remained there two terms only, but I pursued my studies with the intent to become a student at Yale, for which I prepared myself, intending to enter the Junior Class there. My father, however, was not able, as he told me, to bear the expense. I had received an honorable dismission from Williams College, and was much disappointed at being obliged to end my college course in that way."- From a letter to H. W. Powers, 1878. Bryant next turned his attention to the law and in 1815 was admitted to the bar. The next nine years were quietly passed in the practice of his profession in the villages of Plainfield and Great Barrington, Massachusetts. But the poet was sadly out of place. In his poem, "Green River," published at this time, he complained of being "forced to drudge for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, And mingle among the jostling crowd Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud." It was a positive relief when, in 1825, through the influence of friends which his little volume of poems, published in 1821, had won for him, he went to New York City and devoted himself to literary work. During the following year he was made one of the editors of the New York Evening Post, becoming soon after editor-in-chief of the paper, a position that he held for the rest of his life-a period of over half a century. Bryant's life, like that of most men of letters, was bare of incident. The only variations from the monotonous life of the city editor were his six visits to Europe. During the last years of his life he was in almost constant demand as an orator on great occasions. Bryant died in New York City, June 12, 1878. On May 29 he had delivered an address in Central Park at the unveiling of the Mazzini statue. It was an exceedingly warm day and the sun shone fiercely down on the unprotected head of the poet. Later in the day, overcome with dizziness, he fell, striking his head on a stone curbing, from the effects of which blow he never rallied. Thanatopsis (1811). "Thanatopsis' alone would establish a claim to genius.". Christopher North. Written "shortly after he was withdrawn from college, while residing with his parents at Cummington in the summer of 1811, and before he had attained his eighteenth year." — Godwin. The Published in North American Review, September, 1817. "There was no mistaking the quality of these verses. stamp of genius was upon every line. No such verses had been made in America before. They soon found their way into the school books of the country. They were quoted from the pulpit and upon the hustings. Their gifted author had a national fame before he had a vote, and in due time 'Thanatopsis' took the place which it still retains among the masterpieces of English didactic poetry." — Godwin's Life of Bryant. REQUIRED READING.-"Thanatopsis." The best study of Bry ant's poetry for classroom use is Alden's Studies in Bryant. |