CHARACTERIZATION BY G. W. CURTIS. 1. There was a mournful propriety in the circumstances of the death of Bryant. He was stricken just as he had discharged a characteristic duty' with all the felicity for which he was noted, 1 Bryant received the stroke that resulted in his death immediately after the and he was probably never wholly conscious from that moment. Happily we may believe that he was sensible of no decay, and his intimate friends had noted little. He was hale, erect, and strong to the last. All his life a lover of nature and an advocate of liberty, he stood under the trees in the beautiful park on a bright June day, and paid an eloquent tribute to a devoted servant of liberty in another land. And while his words yet lingered in the ears of those who heard him, he passed from human sight. 2. There is probably no eminent man in the country upon whose life and genius and career the verdict of his fellow-citizens would be more immediate and unanimous. His character and life had a simplicity and austerity of outline that had become universally familiar, like a neighboring mountain or the sea. His convictions were very strong, and his temper uncompromising; he was independent beyond most Americans. He was an editor and a partisan; but he held politics and all other things subordinate to the truth and the common welfare, and his earnestness and sincerity and freedom from selfish ends took the sting of personality from his opposition, and constantly placated all who, like him, sought lofty and virtuous objects. 3. This same bent of nature showed itself in the character of his verse. His poetry is intensely and distinctively American. He was a man of scholarly accomplishment, familiar with other languages and literature. But there is no tone or taste of anything not peculiarly American in his poetry. It is as characteristic as the wine of the Catawba grape, and could have been written only in America by an American naturally sensitive to whatever is most distinctively American. 4. Bryant's fame as a poet was made half a century before he died, and the additions to his earlier verse, while they did not lessen, did not materially increase, his reputation. But the mark so early made was never effaced, either by himself or others. Younger men grew by his side into great and just fame. But what Shelley says of love is as true of renown: "True love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away." delivery of an oration on the occasion of the setting-up of a statue to the Italian patriot Mazzini in the Central Park, N. Y. (June, 1878). The tone of Bryant remained, and remained distinct, individual, and unmistakable. Nature, as he said in Thanatopsis, speaks "a various language" to her lovers. But what she said to him was plainly spoken and clearly heard and perfectly repeated. His art was exquisite. It was absolutely unsuspected, but it served its truest purpose, for it removed every obstruction to full and complete delivery of his message. 5. He was reserved, and in no sense magnetic or responsive. There was something in his manner of the New England hills among which he was born-a little stern and bleak and dry, although suffused with the tender and scentless splendor of the white laurel, solemn with primeval pines, and musical with the organ soughs of the wind through their branches. But this reserve was not forbidding, and there was always kindness with all the dryness of his manner. Indeed, his manner was only expressive of that independence which largely made him what he was. He stood quietly and firmly on his own feet. His opinions were his own conclusions, and he made no compromises to save his reputation for consistency, or to secure immunity from criticism, or to retain the sympathy of associates. He, too, was one of the men who are able to go alone, and who can say No. The cobwebs of sophistry which the spiders of fear and ambition in a thousand forms spin around the plain path of duty, to conceal or to deter, he so unconsciously and surely brushed away that at last it came to be understood that his course would be not what his party expected or what a miscalled consistency required, but simply what seemed to him to be the right course. I.-THANATOPSIS. [INTRODUCTION. This celebrated production-the best known of American poems-was written by Bryant when between eighteen and nineteen years of age, and first appeared in the North American Review for 1817. The word thanatopsis (Greek thanatos, death, and opsis, view) signifies a view of death; and the poem is, in fact, a sweetly solemn meditation on the thoughts associated with "the last bitter hour." Prof. Wilson (Christopher North) characterizes it as "a noble example of true poetical enthusiasm," and adds that "it alone would establish the author's claim to the honors of genius." Thanatopsis, as originally published in the North American Review, comprised only about one half of the poem as we know it: it seems to have grown under his hand as he matured; and the successive editions showed numerous slight alterations. In the Literary Analysis some of these changes are indicated, and the comparison of readings will be found instructive.] To him who in the love of nature holds Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,* And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, LITERARY ANALYSIS.-Is the poem in rhyme or blank verse? What is the measure? I. To him, etc. Is the structure of the sentence periodic or loose? she speaks. What is the figure of speech? 3. A various language. Explain. How is the "various language" afterwards exemplified? 7. steals away, etc. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 20.) 8-22. When thoughts... image. What kind of sentence grammatically and rhetorically?—In this sentence only fifteen words are of other than AngloSaxon origin: what are these words?-Point out the figures of speech in this sentence. By what periphrasis does the author denote death? The grave? Give an example of a poetic word-form.-What is the most striking epithet in this sentence? 5 10 To nature's teachings, while from all around- In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim And, lost each human trace, surrendering up To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish LITERARY ANALYSIS.—20. is laid. Originally was laid. What is the effect of the alteration? 23. Thy growth. Metonymy or synecdoche?-resolved. Meaning? 24. lost each human trace. Grammatical construction ?—surrendering up, etc. To what word is this adjective phrase an adjunct?-Remark on the expression "surrendering up." 27. a brother. What is the figure of speech? By what other poets is it much used? 28. What word in this line belongs to the diction of poetry? 29. share. What is the full form of the word? 30. his roots. What is the figure of speech?-mould. Explain. 31. How is the negation rendered very emphatic? 33-37. Thou shalt ... sepulchre. Paraphrase. 37-45. The hills... man. Select the most effective epithets in this sentence. Which of these epithets is metaphorical? 15 20 25 30 35 |