Although he offers some hope that man can direct his own destiny and establish a society based on a lost agrarian ideal, he creates a primarily naturalistic world in which man struggles weakly against the vast natural and social forces that threaten his destruction.
Donnelly was born in Philadelphia to Philip Carroll Donnelly, a physician, and Cathrine Gavin Donnelly. Deeply affected by the religious and racial conflicts that tore Philadelphia in his boyhood, Donnelly early rejected his Catholicism--even dropping his middle name, Loyola--but he always remained proud of his Irish heritage. He attended public schools and was especially fortunate in being sent to Philadelphia's Central High School, which had a curriculum equal to that of many colleges. In high school, he edited the school newspaper and began writing poetry. The year after graduation, he published The Mourner's Vision. A Poem (1850), a long poem about the suppression of freedom in Europe following the revolutions of 1848. Donnelly sent a copy of the poem to Oliver Wendell Holmes, who tactfully replied, "You have the inward adjustments which naturally produce melody of expression and incline you to rhythmical forms.... You are a bright scholar, who has read a good many books and perhaps have a little too much fondness of ornamenting your own composition with phrases borrowed from what you have read...." Holmes's criticism, however, had little effect, and oratorical flourishes and pedantry were to be characteristic of all Donnelly's literary works.
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