Early poetry
Engraving of Bryant, c. 1843An 1867 portrait of Hiram Powers and Bryant, now housed at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C."Thanatopsis" is Bryant's most famous poem, which Bryant may have been working on as early as 1811.
In 1817, his father 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 by Bryant, submitted them along with his own work. The editor of the Review, Edward Tyrrel Channing, read the poem to associate editor Richard Henry Dana Sr., who immediately exclaimed, "That was never written on this side of the water!"[5]
Someone at the North American joined two of the son's discrete fragments, gave the result the Greek-derived title Thanatopsis ("meditation on death"), mistakenly attributed it to the father, and published it. After clarification of the authorship, the son's poems began appearing with some regularity in the Review. A portion of Bryant's poem, Thanatopsis, is at the base of the William Cullen Bryant Memorial behind the New York Public Library, which was dedicated in 1911. "To a Waterfowl", published in 1821, was the most popular.
On January 11, 1821,[6] still striving to build a legal career, Bryant married Frances Fairchild. Soon after, he received an invitation to speak from Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard University to deliver the August commencement. Bryant spent months working on "The Ages", a panorama in verse of the history of civilization, culminating in the establishment of the United States. He subsequently published "The Ages", which led the volume and was titled Poems, which he arranged to publish on the same trip to Harvard. For that book, he added sets of lines at the beginning and end of "Thanatopsis" that changed the poem.
"Thanatopsis" established Bryant's career as a poet. From 1816 to 1825, Bryant depended on his law practice in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to sustain his family financially but he traded his unrewarding profession for New York City and the promise of a literary career. With the encouragement of a distinguished and well-connected literary family, the Sedgwicks, he quickly gained a foothold in New York City's vibrant cultural life.
By 1832, after publishing an expanded version of Poems in the U.S. and, with the assistance 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 1825, was as editor of the New-York Review, which merged with the United States Review and Literary Gazette the following year, in 1826. Bryant's stories over the seven-year period from his time with the Review to the publication of Tales of Glauber Spa in 1832 show a variety of strategies, making him the most inventive of practitioners of the genre during this early stage of its evolution.[7]
New-York Evening Post
In the throes of the failing struggle to raise subscriptions, he accepted part-time duties with the New-York Evening Post under William Coleman; then, partly because of Coleman's ill health, traceable to the consequences of a duel and then a stroke, Bryant's responsibilities expanded rapidly. From assistant editor he rose to editor-in-chief and co-owner of the newspaper that had been founded by Alexander Hamilton. Over the next half century, the Post would become the most respected paper in the city and, from the election of Andrew Jackson, the major platform in the Northeast for the Democratic Party and subsequently of the Free Soil and Republican Parties. In the process, the Evening-Post also became the pillar of a substantial fortune. Despite his Federalist beginnings, Bryant had shifted to being one of the most liberal voices of the century.
An early supporter of organized labor, with his 1836 editorials asserting the right of workmen to strike, Bryant also defended religious minorities and immigrants, and promoted the abolition of slavery.[8] He "threw himself into the foreground of the battle for human rights"[9] and did not cease speaking out against the corrupting influence of certain bankers in spite of their efforts to break down the paper.[10] According to newspaper historian Frank Luther Mott, Bryant was "a great liberal seldom done justice by modern writers".[11]
He was elected an associate fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1855.[12]
Despite his once staunch opposition to Thomas Jefferson and his party, Bryant became one of the key supporters in the Northeast of that same party under Jackson. Bryant's views, always progressive though not quite populist, led him to join the Free Soilers when the Free Soil Party became a core of the new Republican Party in 1856.
Bryant vigorously campaigned for John Frémont, which enhanced his standing in party councils. In 1860, he was one of the prime Eastern exponents of Abraham Lincoln, and Bryant introduced Lincoln at Cooper Union prior to his Cooper Union speech, which was considered influential in lifting Lincoln to the nomination and then the presidency. In the 1860 presidential election, he elected Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin as a presidential elector.[13]
Picturesque America
Bryant edited Picturesque America, which was published between 1872 and 1874. This two-volume set was lavishly illustrated and described scenic places in the United States and Canada.[14]
Translation of Homer
In his final years, Bryant shifted from writing his own poetry to a blank verse translation of Homer's works. He assiduously worked on the Iliad and The Odyssey from 1871 to 1874. He is also remembered as one of the principal authorities on homeopathy and as a hymnist for the Unitarian Church, both legacies of his father's influence on him.
In 1843, Bryant bought a house in Roslyn Harbor on Long Island. He christened and named the house Cedarmere because of the cedar trees around its pond.
In 1865, he bought the farmhouse in Cummington, where he grew up and summered annually until his death. He made substantial improvements to the houses at both properties. He was known for his attention to trees on his land, and later in life he expressed concerns that deforestation in the United States would prove disastrous for American agriculture.[15]
