William Cullen Bryant was born on 3 November 1794 in the rural hill town of Cummington, Massachusetts, and died in New York City on 12 June 1878. During his unusually long life, he became several things at once: one of the earliest American poets to command serious respect at home and abroad, a formidable editor whose newspaper helped shape national political opinion, a translator of Homer, a civic reformer, and a pu…
“The elements of moral truth are few and simple, but their combinations with human actions are as innumerable and diversified as the combinations of language.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder
Richard Henry Dana, born on 15 November 1787 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dead there on 2 February 1879, belonged to the first generation of American writers who attempted to make literature in the young republic something more than a colonial echo of English models. He was a poet, critic, editor, lawyer, lecturer, and influential member of Boston’s literary world. Yet he has long occupied an unstable place in li…
“It is a poor ambition to be anxious after the distinction of a day in that which, if it be fit to live at all, is to live for ages.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
