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| William Cullen Bryant |
William was employed as in Poet & Journalist.
Bryant, William Cullen (1794-1878),
American poet and journalist, born in Cummington, Massachusetts,
and trained in law. Bryant wrote his
finest poetry in his youth. The first draft of “Thanatopsis,” his most
famous poem, was written when he was
16 years of age, and he was only 27 years old when his first
published volume, Poems, appeared in
1821. Poems included, in addition to “Thanatopsis,””Inscription
for the Entrance to a Wood,””Green
River,” and “To a Waterfowl.” From then until his death, Bryant was
known as one of the most
distinguished poets in the United States.
In 1825 he went to New York City,
where he became coeditor of the New York Review, a literary
periodical, and a year later an
editor for the New York Evening Post. By 1829 he was editor in chief of
the Post and later part owner. As a
journalist he campaigned vigorously for free trade, free speech, the
rights of workers, and the abolition
of slavery. He was instrumental in organizing the Republican Party
and was an ardent partisan of the
Union cause during the American Civil War.
Poetry was largely an avocation for
Bryant in his later years. He produced several volumes of verse,
none of which is considered equal to
the poems he wrote in his youth. Bryant is often called the
American Wordsworth because, like the
romantic poet William Wordsworth, he wrote about nature.
Although Bryant's poetry was
frequently didactic, he is best remembered for his beautiful descriptions of
scenes in the Berkshire Hills of
Massachusetts. For Bryant, nature was a symbol of the power of God
and a moral influence on humanity.
Among his other works are translations of the Iliad (1870) and the
Odyssey (1871), by Homer, still
considered among the best in English verse.
Appendix A - Sources
1. Bob
Snow, World Connect pages of Bob Snow,
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GED&db=bobsnow1.
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