FREE ESSAY ON WILLIAM BRYANT

WILLIAM BRYANT

William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts on November 3, 1794. 
His home in Cummington was surrounded by brooks, rivers, rocky hills, and woods. 
Bryant's mother was Sarah Snell Bryant. His father, Doctor Peter Bryant, was a strict
Calvinist who loved poetry, music, and was also one of the strongest men in the
countryside. As a child, Bryant was sickly, but his father's training turned him into a
husky boy. 
Bryant attended the district schools until he was twelve. Then, he studied Greek
and Latin. In 1810, Bryant spent a year at William's College. In 1811, Bryant began to
study law, and in 1815 he was admitted to the bar. After some private study, he
practiced
law in Barrington, Massachusetts. Poetry wasn't a practical occupation for Bryant, so he
continued working as a lawyer and a justice of the peace in Massachusetts until he moved
to New York City in 1825.
Considered a child-prodigy, Bryant published his first poem at age ten and his first
book at age thirteen. All of Bryant's early poetry was published in the early nineteenth
century, and he found his subject in the American landscape, especially that of New
England. Bryant's first draft of "Thanatopsis", an elegy, was written between 1813 and
1814, when Bryant was seventeen years old. Other early poems include "To Waterfowl",
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood", and "The Yellow Violet", which were all written
before he was twenty-one. A few years after Bryant wrote "Thanatopsis" and "To a
Waterfowl", Doctor Peter Bryant found them in a desk and sent them to The North
American Review. Bryant's father helped to publish Bryant's first book, Embargo. 
Most materials published between 1818-1825 were previously written poems now
submitted, since Bryant was known for editing his work for quite some time before
submissions. "Thanatopsis" first appeared in The North American Review in 1817. 
Interested in technique, Bryant published "On the Use of Trisyllabic Feet in Iambic
Verse"
in 1819. In 1821, Bryant was invited to read the Phi Beta Kappa poem at the Harvard
College commencement. Also in 1821, he married Frances Fairchild. In 1825, Bryant
moved his family to New York City to become editor of The New York Review. By this
year, he was known as the finest poet in the United States.
In 1826, after a year as editor on The New York Review, Bryant became an
editor-in-chief at The Evening Post, a New York paper. The Evening Post was
established by the "Federalist Party Stalwart", Alexander Hamilton. Bryant had great
influence on The New York Evening Post. In fact, Bryant's editorials made The Evening
Post one of the most respected papers in the country. 
At first, Bryant stood with the Democrats on national affairs, but he finally broke
with them on the slavery issue. By 1840, Bryant had largely abandoned poetry to become
one of the country's leading advocates for the abolition of slavery. In 1856, Bryant
assembled the paper to Republican cause. In 1863, The Evening Post and Bryant
influenced Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Also, Bryant
introduced Abraham Lincoln before an audience at Cooper Union in New York.
In Bryant's later life, he traveled widely, made many public speeches, and
continued to write a few poems, such as "The Death of Flowers", "To a Fringed Gentian",
and "The Battlefield". After the death of his wife in 1866, Bryant resumed translating
The
Iliad, completed in 1870, and thereafter, The Odyssey, completed in 1872. In 1876 he
published a final collected edition. 
Bryant continued to pursue editorial work for a total of fifty years. In his book
Lectures on Poetry, which was delivered in 1825 and published in 1884, he emphasized
the values of simplicity, original imagination, and morality. In 1878, after attending
the
dedication of a bust of himself in New York, William Cullen Bryant died, rich and
successful. 
Conclusion
Although William Cullen Bryant led a prosperous life, he is regarded as falling
somewhat short of his potential. Because of this, his place in literary history is not
altogether secure. Bryant lacked epics, elegies, and verse drama in his poetry, causing
critics to not give him categorical honors. Nevertheless, even though he published very
little as he became more and more involved in the journalistic life, he was remarkably
popular in his time. He was even at one time named as a candidate for President.
Introduction
William Cullen Bryant was a defender of human rights and a supporter of free
trade, the abolition of slavery, and other improvements. Bryant was also an advocate of
the hands off economic policy also known as "Laissez-Faire". He is best known for his
early poem, "Thanatopsis", which granted him universal recognition. Other well known
poems include "To a Waterfowl" and "The Prairies". Bryant also translated "The Iliad"
and "The Odyssey".