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Bryant WC

Name: William Cullen Bryant

Achievements: A key figure in the establishment of Central Park, New York.

Born: November 3, 1794; Cummington, Massachusetts

Died: June 12, 1878; New York, NY (Aged 84)

Field & Discipline: Literature; Journalism; Poet; Journalist

Language: English

Father: Peter Bryant

Mother: Sarah Snell

Siblings: Fanny; Julia

Spouse: Frances Fairchild

Children: 2

Education: Williams College, Massachusetts

Life & Times:

At the age of thirteen, Bryant had a poem published in the Hampshire “Gazette”. The following year came a pamphlet: “The Embargo, or Sketches of the Times”, a satirical poem which criticized [satirized] Jefferson* for putting an embargo on imports and exports. There was not enough money to support him through Yale so Bryant read for the law and qualified in 1815.

His deep feeling for nature was expressed in poems such as “The Yellow Violet” (1814), “To a Waterfowl” (1815) and “Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood” (1817). Influenced by the English poet [influenced by] Wordsworth*, whose “Lyrical Ballads” he read at this time, Bryant  was concerned to match the joy of the sensory experience with the associated thoughts that arose through contemplation of nature. In this he anticipated the work of [anticipated] Emerson* and other transcendentalists who were influenced by [influenced by] Swedenborg*.  

His first draft of ‘Thanatopsis”, his major work in blank verse,  was published in the “North American Review” in 1817 and marked his recognition as a poet.  He was now making contacts in literary circles and on a trip to New York in 1824 was introduced to authors such as [met] Fenimore Cooper* .

In 1825 he moved with his young family to New York and became editor the “New York Review.” In 1826 he delivered lectures on poetry to the Athenaeum Society and the American Academy of Art. In 1827 he took an editorial job on the New York “Evening Post” and two years later became part owner and editor-in-chief.  His first major crusade was in support of free trade, and he also attacked the United States Bank as an instrument of rich industrialists operating at the expense of  workers.  Another collection of his poems came out in 1832.  After a trip through Illinois he wrote “The Prairies” and poems about Native Americans.

Bryant first visited Europe in 1834. At Heidelberg he met [nature-walks with] Longfellow* who was studying there and the two poets took nature walks together.  In 1836 he reluctantly returned to New York and when he returned to active editorial work on the “Post” in 1837 he began a campaign to open up the debate for the abolition of slavery. He also wrote against the annexation of Texas on the grounds that it would add to the slave states.

In 1842 the English novelist [supported campaign by] Dickens* visited New York. The two men did not take to each other (Bryant found Dickens flamboyant and Dickens thought Bryant rather serious) but Bryant, together with other literary figures such as Fenimore Cooper and [collaborated with] Washington Irving*,  actively supported Dickens’ campaign for international copyright law.

In 1845, Bryant traveled to Europe again and had afternoon tea in England with Wordsworth. Bryant was now at the zenith of his editorial career and although in 1846 he published “The White-Footed Deer And Other Poems” he was becoming increasingly restive about the amount of time journalism took from his creative writing. In 1848  he managed to persuade [hired] Bigelow* to join the “Post”.

In 1849 he took advantage of Bigelow’s appointment to travel to Cuba and to Europe. In 1850 he published an account of his travels in “Letters of a Traveler”. In 1853 he went to the Middle East. On his return he was so disillusioned with the Democratic attitude to the question of slavery in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska that he decided to support the Republicans, a new party formed from dissatisfied Democrats and Whigs. It was Bryant’s rival editor, [collaborated with] Greeley*, who came up with the name ‘Republican,’  and together the two men committed their papers to backing the Republican candidate John C Fremont in 1855.

On a trip to Europe in 1857 Bryant joined up with [traveled with] Nathaniel Hawthorne* and toured Florence with him. During the Civil War, Bryant’s editorials supported Lincoln* and the Union cause, and backed the appointment of [supported] Grant* as commander-in-chief of the Union forces in 1864.  In his seventieth year, Bryant published a new collection, “Thirty Poems.”   Tributes were paid to him by Ralph Waldo Emerson and others, and poems were specially written in his honor writers including [an admirer was] Holmes* and James Russell Lowell.

In 1866-7 Bryant, now widowed, made a final voyage to Europe with his daughter, during which he renewed an acquaintance begun in New York with the Italian leader [knew] Garibaldi*. To help himself get over his wife’s death Bryant began a translation of Homer’s “Iliad,” published in 1870. He immediately began translating the “Odyssey.”  In 1872 he gave reluctant support to Horace Greeley’s candidacy for presidential nomination on the grounds that there was nobody else opposing Grant.  After making a dedicatory speech at the unveiling of a statue to the Italian patriot [admirer of] Mazzini*, Bryant fell and died of his injuries soon after.

Extra Connections:

In 1915, a statue of William Cullen Bryant by sculptor Herbert Adams was one of the statues of “Eminent Americans” that surrounded The Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California.

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

Assessment: Bryant’s support for issues such as the abolition of slavery and the creation of a public park in New York did much to sway public opinion.

Oneliner: WC Bryant, co-founder of Central Park

Bibliography:

Wikipedia

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