“Bard of the River and of the Wood”

It seems to me that a large number of the poems written in the U.S. today contain the word "I" in their first sentence.  Even if the word "I" is not actually present, many contemporary poems focus on the poet's individual experience.  Two centuries ago, one American asked what American writing should be weighted toward to distinguish itself -- what it should be drawn to. And he had a different answer.  He thought this new nation should have its poetic attention drawn to Nature, particularly the extraordinary woods, mountains, and skies of the American landscape.  Through his own poetry, his editorship of the New York Evening Post, and his cultivation of other poets and artists, he had that very effect upon 19th-century American creativity.  His name was William Cullen Bryant.

"Kindred Spirits"
(depicting Bryant and Cole)

Even if you do not recognize his name, you may have seen an often reproduced painting in which he and another man stand side by side at a cliff's edge, surrounded by green forest, a waterfall within earshot, and mountains in the hazy distance.  That painting's title, "Kindred Spirits," describes the friendship of the two men depicted.  One of them is the painter Thomas Cole, who led the Hudson River movement, and whose own landscape paintings both glorified the American wilderness and struggled with its relationship to human civilization.  "Kindred Spirits" was painted by Asher B. Durand in 1849 as a memorial to Cole the year after he died.  The second man in the painting, holding a hat, is none other than William Cullen Bryant, who is sometimes wearing just such a hat in some photographs of him later in life.

Following the American Revolution, the question arose in some American minds of how this new country could differentiate itself from the ancient, warring nations of Europe -- not only politically but also culturally.  Born only a decade after the American Revolution ended, Bryant came to promote the idea that an American freedom of poetry and art could be developed by drawing upon our communion with America's distinctive manifestations of Nature.  Walt Whitman described Bryant as "Bard of the river and of the wood, ever conveying a taste of open air."

Bryant's spirit was personally suited for such a task.  He wrote of himself, "I was always a delighted observer of external nature."   His most famous poem, "Thanatopsis," opens with a description of how we can feel a kindredness with Nature despite its variability:

"To him who in the love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides

Into his darker musings, with a mild

And healing sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware...."

~~~

How do you draw strength from friendships?  How do you draw strength from Nature?

(Whitman's description and Bryant's description of himself are taken from

 the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, © 1977.  Vol. II, p. 328.)

(The full text of Bryant's poem [1811, 1817] can be read at this external link:  "Thanatopsis".)