The American Byron: Homosexuality and the Fall of Fitz-Greene HalleckHailed in the mid-nineteenth century as the most important American poet of the period, Fitz-Greene Halleck was a close friend of William C. Bryant, an associate of Charles Dickens and Washington Irving, and a celebrity sought out by John Jacob Astor and American presidents. Halleck, an attractive man of wit and charm, was dubbed "the American Byron" because he both employed similar poetic strategies and challenged the most sacred institutions of his day. A large general readership enjoyed his verse, though it was infused with homosexual themes. Indeed, Halleck's love for another man would be fictionalized in Bayard Taylor's novel Joseph and His Friend a century before the Stonewall riots. |
From inside the book
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... poet had been a personal friend of such foreign dignitaries as Joseph Bonaparte and British government minister Charles Richard Vaughan , who had thrown a grand dinner just to honor him . The poet had also impressed other major authors ...
... poet , Fitz - Greene Halleck . President Hayes , who had taken office only two months earlier , un- knowingly ... poets . " 3 While favorable portraits of Hal- leck had been painted by America's leading artists ( including Brown ...
... Poet's Corner of America , " strangely nicknamed since it had previously included only the English and Scottish figures of ... poetry . " 15 While the National Magazine noted that this critique was a rare example of " when Poe did praise ...
... poet . " 17 Edith Wharton certainly felt that Halleck's name needed no explanation in The Age of Innocence ( chapter ... poetry in- creasingly empathized with the plight of Native Americans , slaves , women , and heretics as he came to ...
... poetry and wore the role of national poet uncomfortably . Perhaps in an effort to shun this burden , he published " The Field of the Grounded Arms " in 1828. Devoid of rhyme , its innovative form was a daring attack on convention that ...
Contents
Shepherds of Sodomy | 17 |
Love and War | 42 |
The Widow Halleck | 67 |
Conquer and Divide | 92 |
A Return to Ganymede | 121 |
Halleck and His Friend | 151 |
Notes | 177 |
196 | |
217 | |