William Cullen Bryant Summary

Biography EssayWilliam Cullen Bryant was the first American writer of verse to win wide international acclaim. His talent asserted itself quite early. He wrote and was published while still a child; b... Read more

William Cullen Bryant is a poet of historic importance, chiefly because he was the first American writer of verse to win wide international acclaim. His talent asserted itself quite early. He wrote a... Read more

In 1813 William Cullen Bryant, then a law student at Yale University, had a run-in with his tutor, Samuel Howe. Howe had caught Bryant reading William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and warned young Cul... Read more

No line of his poetry survives in the consciousness of his nation, and none of his editorial pronouncements still resonate from his five decades with the New-York Evening Post; yet, no frieze interpre... Read more

In the following excerpt, Strong discusses various aspects of Christian theology in Bryant's poetry, including the poet's expressions of divine compassion, salvation, and immortality, an... Read more

In the following essay, Harrington investigates the "profound influence of the senses" in Bryant's poetry. Even before James Russell Lowell's celebrated comparison of Willi... Read more

In the essay below, Booher discusses Bryant's pastoral and sometimes primitive treatment of the American Midwest in "The Prairies," noting his contributions to the mythology of th... Read more

In the following essay, originally presented at the 1978 Centennial Conference at Hofstra University, Moriarty re-evaluates Bryant's poetic imagery from a modernist point of view, suggesting th... Read more

In the excerpt below, McLean focuses on Bryant's poetic theory and poetic technique, observing a distinct division between the poet's artistic intention and his poetic achievement. If Br... Read more