American Literature:

1. American Literature: Literary Eras and Authors Week Seven

2. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Lecture Outline Romanticism in America (Continued) William Cullen Bryant Edgar Allan Poe Reading Assignments

3. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant Born Nov. 3, 1794 , Cummington, Mass Died June 12, 1878 , New York City American poet and newspaper editor. First American writer of verse to win international acclaim.

4. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) Bryant was considered a child-prodigy, publishing his first poem at age ten and his first book when he was thirteen. Bryant studied both Latin and Greek. The son of a learned and highly respected physician, he was exposed to English poetry and had access to a library full of the classics in his father�s vast library, which explains many of the classical allusions in his poetry. As a boy he became devoted to the New England countryside and was a keen observer of nature. In his early poems such as �Thanatopsis�, �To a Waterfowl�, �Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood�, and �The Yellow Violet�, all written before he was 21, he celebrated the majesty of nature in a style that was influenced by the English romantics but also reflected a personal simplicity and dignity.

5. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) Dr Bryant, his father, interceded in many points of Bryant's life. He pushed Bryant towards the legal profession, helped critique and even sent his poems, without his son's approval, to literary magazines, and helped to publish his first book, Embargo . Admitted to the bar in 1815. He practiced law in Great Barrington, Mass., supporting a wife and family, and wrote very little between 1818-1825. He became associate editor of the New York Evening Post in 1826, after giving up the drudgery of practicing law. From 1829 to his death he was part owner and editor in chief. An industrious and forthright editor of a highly literate paper, he was a defender of human rights and an advocate of free trade (�Laissez-Faire�), abolition of slavery, and other reforms. His influence from the editorial desk of the New York Evening Post was great.

6. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) He also holds an important place in literature as the earliest American theorist of poetry. In his Lectures on Poetry (delivered 1825; published 1884) and other critical essays he stressed the values of simplicity, original imagination, and morality. During his later career Bryant traveled widely, made many public speeches, and continued to write a few poems (e.g., �The Death of the Flowers�, �To the Fringed Gentian�, and �The Battle-Field�). His blank verse translation of the Iliad appeared in 1870, that of the Odyssey in 1872. Bryant received great praise for his poetry, but the critics did not give him unconditional laurels, due to the absence of a full range of poetry, such as epics, elegies, and verse drama. He looked at art as something demanding time and reflection. Although he published little as he became immersed in the journalistic life, he was extremely popular in his time.

7. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 To a Waterfowl Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side? There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- The desert and illimitable air,-- Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fann'd At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere: Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. He, who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

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9. Lecture 7, American Literature (I) Autumn 2008 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Main Literary Works: Annabel Lee (1849) To Helen (1848) The Raven (1845) The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)