CHAPTER XII WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT REFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES Life, 2 Vol., by Parke Godwin; New York, 1883. Life, by John Bigelow; Boston, 1890. Life, by Wm. A. Bradley; New York, 1905. SUPPLEMENTARY READING The Yellow Violet, To the Fringed Gentian, Green River, June, Autumn Woods, The Death of the Flowers, The Gladness of Nature, The Evening Wind, The Snow-shower, Robert of Lincoln, The Planting of the Apple-tree, The Prairies, a Lifetime. The Past, The Poet, O Fairest of the Rural Maids (written to the lady who became his wife; compare with Wordsworth's Three years she grew, as expressing the educating power of Nature), The May Sun Sheds an Amber Light (Godwin II, 31). The Green Mountain Boys, Song of Marion's Men, Oh! Mother of a Mighty Race, The Death of Lincoln. See also Appendix I, titles 25 to 27 inclusive. TO A WATERFOWL I. This poem is an apostrophe to a flying bird, and an expression of the moral thought it brings the poet. Seeing the dark figure outlined against the glowing evening sky, he reflects that the Power which guides the bird safely through its journey will lead him also safely through life. The circumstances under which the poem was composed give it special significance. Bryant was about to begin his career as a young lawyer. He felt, as every young man must feel when he takes his first independent step in life, an intense loneliness and a great anxiety for the future. The following paragraph is quoted from Godwin I, 143, 144.* How was he to live until success should come? There was, in fact, no alternative for him but to begin in some small country village, where, if the prospects of practice were not very alluring, the cost of subsistence at least might be managed. On the opposite hillside from Cummington, about seven miles distant, and to be seen from his father's residence, was a hamlet called Plainfield, whither he resolved to go to try his fortune. On the 15th of December [1815] he went over to the place to make the necessary inquiries. He says in a letter that he felt, as he walked up the hills, very forlorn and desolate indeed, not knowing what was to become of him in the big world, which grew bigger as he ascended, and yet darker with the coming on of night. The sun had already set, leaving behind it one of those brilliant seas of chrysolite and opal which often flood the New England skies; and, while he was looking upon the rosy splendor with rapt admiration, a solitary bird made wing along the illuminated horizon. He watched the lone wanderer until it was lost in the distance, asking himself whither it had come and to what far home it was flying. When he went to the house where he was to stop for the night, his mind was still full of what he had seen and felt, and he wrote those lines as imperishable as our language, 'The Waterfowl.' The solemn tone in which they conclude, and which by some critics has been thought too moralizing, was as much a part of the scene as the flight of the bird itself, which spoke not alone to his eye, but to his soul. To have omitted that grand expression of faith and hope in a divine guidance would have been to violate the entire truth of the vision. II. The picture is described in the first two stanzas. Study it word by word, bringing together the color words that describe the splendor of the sky, and the words that speak of the one dark spot against it. Is the bird flying * Quotations from Parke Godwin's Life are made by permission of Messrs. D. Appleton and Company. high or low? If you were an illustrator exactly what picture would you make for this poem? In connection with the seventh line, read the following extract from a letter from Bryant to his publisher, who has objected to a change in wording. See Godwin II, 288, 289. In regard to the change made in the Waterfowl in which the line now stands As darkly seen against the crimson sky, instead of As darkly painted on the crimson sky, please read what I have to say in excuse. I was never satisfied with the word painted because the next line is Thy figure floats along. Now, from a very early period — I am not sure that it was not from the very time that I wrote the poem there seemed to me an incongruity between the idea of a figure painted on the sky, and a figure moving, 'floating,' across its surface. If the figure were painted, then it would be fixed. The incongruity distressed me, and I could not be easy till I had made the change. I preferred a plain, prosaic expression to a picturesque one that seemed to me false. Painted expresses well the depth and strength of color which fixed my attention when I saw the bird but it contradicts the motion of the winds and the progress of the bird through the air. Do you agree with the poet or with the publisher? III. Study the style of the poem with respect to the following points: 1. Diction: poetic words, epithets, suggestiveness and connotation of the words chosen. 2. Sentence-structure: inversion, periodic form. 3. Figures: apostrophe, personification, metaphor. Do not make lists merely, but try to show how the poet's expression is related to his thought, and how he rouses the imagination of the reader. Was he always as conscientious in his art as he was when he substituted seen for painted? IV. Has Bryant chosen meter and stanza-structure suitable to his thought? What effect have the run-on lines? Are the pauses arranged well? Study the poem for its melody and harmony. Bigelow (p. 43) tells us that Hartley Coleridge, son of the great English poet, declared to his college friend, Matthew Arnold, that this was the finest poem in the English language, and that he quoted with special pleasure the fifteenth and sixteenth lines. Why should he have remembered and cited these lines particularly? V. Read the poem aloud. Do not neglect the beauty of sound, which will make more effective the expression of the thought. INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE TO A WOOD I. In this poem the forest is regarded as the abode of peace and gladness, to which man may retire for comfort and strength when he is weary of the sins and cares of the world. Nature innocent and therefore happy - is contrasted with humanity-sinful and therefore miserable. Make a list of the words of content and gladness applied to Nature and the things of Nature; make another list of words relating to sin and sorrow applied to human life. II. The thought is serious; the style should, therefore, be dignified. Prepare to say how the style enforces the effect of the thought in the following particulars: 1. in the choice of adjectives and epithets; in the use of specific words; 2. in the use of figures of speech; 3. in the use of archaic and poetic words; 4. in the sentence length and structure; 5. in the allusions; 6. in the use of blank verse; 7. in the passages in which sound harmonizes with sense. Under 2 speak particularly of apostrophe, personification, and metaphors. Under 4 observe the approach to periodic structure in lines 1-6, and the suspense in lines 28-32, 34-36. Under 5 the only possible difficulty is in lines 11-15. The "primal curse," when Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise, declared that the earth should bring forth thorns and thistles. (See Genesis 3: 18.) But this was not to punish the sinless earth; misery comes only to guilty man. Under 6 speak of the long phrasing produced by run-on lines and medial pauses. Under 7 note especially lines 34 and 35. In discussing all these points, avoid mere enumeration. Your work is to show how these rhetorical features, by producing a certain style, make more effective the thought the poet desires to express. Does Bryant in his description of the wood depend more on figures or on specific words and epithets? III. From the biographies of Bryant find out when and under what circumstances this early poem was written and published, and what name was first given to it. Read all the criticism and comment you can find on it. A good comment is to be found in Godwin's Bryant, I, 142: "Composed in a noble old forest that fronted his father's dwelling-house, it is an exquisite picture of the calm contentment he found in the woods. Every object . . . is painted with the minutest fidelity, and yet with an almost impassioned sympathy." IV. Read the poem aloud. Try to express with your |