William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts on November 3, 1794.
His home in Cummington was surrounded by brooks, rivers, rocky hills, and woods.
Bryant's mother was Sarah Snell Bryant. His father, Doctor Peter Bryant, was a strict
Calvinist who loved poetry, music, and was also one of the strongest men in the
countryside. As a child, Bryant was sickly, but his father's training turned him into a
husky boy.
Bryant attended the district schools until he was twelve. Then, he studied Greek
and Latin. In 1810, Bryant spent a year at William's College. In 1811, Bryant began to
study law, and in 1815 he was admitted to the bar. After some private study, he practiced
law in Barrington, Massachusetts. Poetry wasn't a practical occupation for Bryant, so he
continued working as a lawyer and a justice of the peace in Massachusetts until he moved
to New York City in 1825.
Considered a child-prodigy, Bryant published his first poem at age ten and his first
book at age thirteen. All of Bryant's early poetry was published in the early nineteenth
century, and he found his subject in the American landscape, especially that of New
England. Bryant's first draft of "Thanatopsis", an elegy, was written between 1813 and
1814, when Bryant was seventeen years old. Other early poems include "To Waterfowl",
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood", and "The Yellow Violet", which were all written
before he was twenty-one. A few years after Bryant wrote "Thanatopsis" and "To a
Waterfowl", Doctor Peter Bryant found them in a desk and sent them to The North
American Review. Bryant's father helped to publish Bryant's first book, Embargo.
Most materials published between 1818-1825 were previously written poems now
submitted, since Bryant was known for editing his work for quite some time before
submissions. &...