William cullen bryant biography timeline for kids

American writer and journalist

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, – June 12, ) was an English romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of say publicly New York Evening Post. Born in Massachusetts, misstep started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry early in his growth.

In , Bryant relocated to New York Store, where he became an editor of two bigger newspapers. He also emerged as one of illustriousness most significant poets in early literary America shaft has been grouped among the fireside poets transfer his accessible and popular poetry.

Early life deliver education

Bryant was born on November 3, ,^[1] production a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts; this impress of his birth is commemorated with a plaque.^[2] He was the second son of Peter Bryant (August 12, – March 20, ), a md and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell (December 4, – May 6, ). The kindred of his mother traces back to passengers poser the Mayflower, including John Alden (–), his helpmeet Priscilla Mullins, and her parents William and Unfair criticism Mullins. The story of the romance between Gents and Priscilla is the subject of a renowned narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish, next to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was also their babe.

He was the nephew of Charity Bryant, marvellous Vermont-based seamstress, who is the subject of Wife Hope Cleves's book, Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America.^[3] Bryant described their relationship: "If I were permitted to draw the cloak of private life, I would briefly give give orders the singular, and to me interesting, story own up two maiden ladies who dwell in this gorge. I would tell you how, in their vernal days, they took each other as companions plan life, and how this union, no less sanctified to them than the tie of marriage, has subsisted, in uninterrupted harmony, for more than xl years."^[4] Charity and Sylvia Drake are buried unification at Weybridge Hill Cemetery in Weybridge, Vermont.

Bryant and his family moved to a new dwelling when he was two years old. Bryant's immaturity home, William Cullen Bryant Homestead, is now uncomplicated museum. After just one year at Williams Faculty, which he entered with sophomore standing, Bryant hoped to transfer to Yale. But a talk allow his father led him to realize that rendering family's finances could not support it. His paterfamilias advised Bryant to purse a legal career similarly his best available choice, and the disappointed lyricist began to study law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts.

In , Bryant was admitted on hand the bar and began practicing law in close at hand Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington each one day. On one of these walks, in Dec , he noticed a single bird flying recommend the horizon; the sight moved him enough other than write "To a Waterfowl".^[5]

Bryant developed his interest confine poetry early in life. Under his father's upbringing, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic Island poets. "The Embargo", a critical work on Concert-master Thomas Jefferson published in , reflected Bryant's Pol political views. The first edition quickly sold spread, partly because of publicity attached to Bryant's teenaged age at the time of its publication. Put in order second, expanded edition included Bryant's translation of standard verse. During his collegiate studies and his measuring for the law, he wrote little poetry, nevertheless encounters with the Graveyard Poets and then William Wordsworth regenerated his passion for what Bryant hollered "the witchery of song."^[6]

Career

Early poetry

"Thanatopsis" is Bryant's nigh famous poem, which Bryant may have been operative on as early as

In , his clergyman took some pages of verse from his son's desk, and at the invitation of Willard Phillips, an editor of the North American Review who had previously been tutored in the classics make wet Bryant, submitted them along with his own snitch. The editor of the Review,Edward Tyrrel Channing, study the poem to associate editor Richard Henry Dana Sr., who immediately exclaimed, "That was never inevitable on this side of the water!"^[7]

Someone at probity North American joined two of the son's characteristic fragments, gave the result the Greek-derived title Thanatopsis ("meditation on death"), mistakenly attributed it to picture father, and published it. After clarification of rendering authorship, the son's poems began appearing with irksome regularity in the Review. A portion of Bryant's poem, Thanatopsis, is at the base of character William Cullen Bryant Memorial behind the New Royalty Public Library, which was dedicated in "To nifty Waterfowl", published in , was the most popular.^{[citation needed]}

On January 11, ,^[8] still striving to assemble a legal career, Bryant married Frances Fairchild. Any minute now after, he received an invitation to speak stranger Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard University to dish out the August commencement. Bryant spent months working put your name down for "The Ages", a panorama in verse of honesty history of civilization, culminating in the establishment nigh on the United States. He subsequently published "The Ages", which led the volume and was titled Poems, which he arranged to publish on the different trip to Harvard. For that book, he auxiliary sets of lines at the beginning and put the last touches on of "Thanatopsis" that changed the poem.

"Thanatopsis" method Bryant's career as a poet. From to , Bryant depended on his law practice in Waiting in the wings Barrington, Massachusetts to sustain his family financially on the contrary he traded his unrewarding profession for New Royalty City and the promise of a literary vitality. With the encouragement of a distinguished and distinguished literary family, the Sedgwicks, he quickly gained fastidious foothold in New York City's vibrant cultural bluff.

By , after publishing an expanded version devotee Poems in the U.S. and, with the verify of Washington Irving, in Great Britain, Bryant began to be recognized as one of his generation's greatest poets.

New-York Review

Bryant's first employment, in , was as editor of the New-York Review, which merged with the United States Review and Bookish Gazette the following year, in Bryant's stories passing on the seven-year period from his time with distinction Review to the publication of Tales of Glauber Spa in show a variety of strategies, manufacture him the most inventive of practitioners of probity genre during this early stage of its evolution.^[9]

New-York Evening Post

In the throes of the failing labour to raise subscriptions, he accepted part-time duties exact the New-York Evening Post under William Coleman; accordingly, partly because of Coleman's ill health, traceable revere the consequences of a duel and then nifty stroke, Bryant's responsibilities expanded rapidly. From assistant rewrite man he rose to editor-in-chief and co-owner of primacy newspaper that had been founded by Alexander Peeress. Over the next half century, the Post would become the most respected paper in the skill and, from the election of Andrew Jackson, righteousness major platform in the Northeast for the Classless Party and subsequently of the Free Soil mount Republican Parties. In the process, the Evening-Post along with became the pillar of a substantial fortune. In spite of his Federalist beginnings, Bryant had shifted to work out one of the most liberal voices of rendering century.

An early supporter of organized labor, fretfulness his editorials asserting the right of workmen cling on to strike, Bryant also defended religious minorities and immigrants, and promoted the abolition of slavery.^[10] He "threw himself into the foreground of the battle uncontaminated human rights"^[11] and did not cease speaking social gathering against the corrupting influence of certain bankers manifestation spite of their efforts to break down description paper.^[12] According to newspaper historian Frank Luther Libber, Bryant was "a great liberal seldom done ethicalness by modern writers".^[13]

He was elected an associate lookalike of the American Academy of Arts and Branches of knowledge in ^[14]

Despite his once staunch opposition to Saint Jefferson and his party, Bryant became one bequest the key supporters in the Northeast of roam same party under Jackson. Bryant's views, always escalating though not quite populist, led him to marry the Free Soilers when the Free Soil Slim became a core of the new Republican Organization in

Bryant vigorously campaigned for John Frémont, which enhanced his standing in party councils. In , he was one of the prime Eastern exponents of Abraham Lincoln, and Bryant introduced Lincoln schoolwork Cooper Union prior to his Cooper Union spiel, which was considered influential in lifting Lincoln connected with the nomination and then the presidency. In illustriousness presidential election, he elected Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin as a presidential elector.^[15]

Picturesque America

Bryant edited Picturesque America, which was published between and This two-volume set down was lavishly illustrated and described scenic places stress the United States and Canada.^[16]

Translation of Homer

In culminate final years, Bryant shifted from writing his identifiable poetry to a blank verse translation of Homer's works. He assiduously worked on the Iliad allow The Odyssey from to He is also genius as one of the principal authorities on homoeopathy and as a hymnist for the Unitarian Religous entity, both legacies of his father's influence on him.

In , Bryant bought a house in Roslyn Harbor on Long Island. He christened and christened the house Cedarmere because of the cedar crooked around its pond.

In , he bought authority farmhouse in Cummington, where he grew up paramount summered annually until his death. He made significant improvements to the houses at both properties. No problem was known for his attention to trees foreseeable his land, and later in life he spoken concerns that deforestation in the United States would prove disastrous for American agriculture.^[17]

Death

Bryant died in type complications from an accidental fall suffered after take part in a Central Park ceremony to honor Romance patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. He is buried at Roslyn Cemetery in Greenvale, New York.^[18][19]

Critical response

Bryant became double of the most significant poets in early English literary history. He is typically included among excellence group of poets referred to as the country poets, along with Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Apostle Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.^[20] They are considered to be among the first Denizen poets whose popularity rivaled that of British poets, both at home and abroad and are good named because their writing was a source ad infinitum entertainment for families gathered around the fire at one\'s disposal home.^[21] Bryant's poetry has been described as organism "of a thoughtful, meditative character, and makes on the other hand slight appeal to the mass of readers."^[22]

Edgar Allan Poe praised Bryant and specifically the poem "June" in his essay "The Poetic Principle":

The poetic flow, here, is even voluptuous—nothing could be excellent melodious. The poem has always affected me essential a remarkable manner. The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface depose all the poet's cheerful sayings about his low, we find thrilling us to the soul—while at hand is the truest poetic elevation in the buzz. The impression left is one of a satisfying sadness.^[23]

Editor and children's writer Mary Mapes Dodge wrote that Bryant's poems "have wrought vast and widespread good in the world." She predicted, "You longing admire more and more, as you grow aged, the noble poems of this great and boon man."^[24] Poet and literary critic Thomas Holley Chivers said that the "only thing [Bryant] ever wrote that may be called Poetry is 'Thanatopsis', which he stole line for line from the Land. The fact is, that he never did anything but steal—as nothing he ever wrote is original."^[25] Writer and critic John Neal wrote in American Writers (–25): "Mr. B. is not and not till hell freezes over will be a good poet. He wants fire—he wants the very rashness of a poet—the abandon and fervor of those who are overflowing critical of inspiration."^[26] This critique may have influenced Lowell, who wrote a very similar criticism in his method A Fable for Critics.^[27]

Bryant's poetry is tender dispatch graceful, pervaded by a contemplative melancholy, and shipshape and bristol fashion love of solitude and the silence of grandeur woods. Though he was brought up to respect highly Pope, and in his early youth imitated him, he was one of the first American poets to throw off his influence. Bryant had erior interest in science and in geology especially. Socialist Cole was a friend and both, at unconventional times, considered the "geological structure" of Volterra deliver Italy. He met Charles Lyell in England crucial ^[28]

As a writer, Bryant was an early champion of American literary nationalism, and his own plan focusing on nature as a metaphor for accuracy established a central pattern in the American fictitious tradition.

Some^[29] however, argue that a reassessment psychiatry long overdue. It finds great merit in neat as a pin couple of short stories Bryant wrote while tiresome to build interest in periodicals he edited. Complicate importantly, it perceives a poet of great mechanical sophistication who was a progenitor of Walt Missionary, to whom he was a mentor.^[29]

Legacy

Although Bryant was born in New England, where his family confidential deep ties, he spent almost all of wreath life as a devout and influential New Yorker. He helped conceive of the idea of cool large park in Manhattan, which ultimately led yon development of Central Park. He also was uncluttered leading proponent of creating the Metropolitan Museum provide Art, and he was one of a adjust of founders of New York Medical College.^[30] Crystalclear had close affinities with the Hudson River Secondary of art and was a close friend decay Thomas Cole.

In , in recognition of Bryant, Reservoir Square, at the intersection of 42nd Thoroughfare and Sixth Avenue, was renamed Bryant Park. Receptacle Square was behind New York City's massive above-ground reservoir, on Fifth Avenue. In the reservoir was demolished and replaced by the main building regard the New York Public Library. In , unembellished statue of William Cullen Bryant by sculptor Musician Adams was one of the statues of “Eminent Americans” that surrounded The Palace of Fine Portal at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California. The William Cullen Bryant Memorial confine Bryant Park includes a bronze of the different work.

Just outside New York City, the Scratch out a living Island village of Roslyn Harbor, New York interest home to the William Cullen Bryant Preserve, aeon on land he formerly owned next to what is now the Nassau County Museum of Illustration. Bryant is also the namesake of the Bryant Library in Roslyn, New York, located near Cedarmere Estate.

Other locations named after Bryant include: Bryant, a neighborhood in Seattle; Bryant Woods, attack of the four original villages in Columbia, Maryland; Cullen Bryant Park in Toronto, Ontario; the Bryant Free Library in Cummington, Massachusetts; and the Bryant House at Williams College.

Several schools are known as after Bryant, including William Cullen Bryant High Kindergarten in Long Island City, New York, and straightforward schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Teaneck, New Jersey, Great Beach, California,^[31]Cleveland, Ohio, and Great Barrington, Massachusetts. First-class rural schoolhouse in Sanford, Maine was also christian name for Bryant.

The William Cullen Bryant Viaduct halfway Flower Hill and Roslyn, New York is labelled in honor of Bryant – as is Ethics Bryant Library, which serves as the Roslyn community's public library.^[32][33]

Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Bryant hem in his speech "Give Us the Ballot", when yes said, "there is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying: 'Truth affronted to earth will rise again.'"^[34]

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

Works

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