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. |
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... York's Central Park . President Jackson had dined twice with the man honored on this day , President Lincoln had complimented him , and John Quincy Adams had alluded to one of his poems in a speech delivered to the House of ...
... York Times on January 30 , 1864 , this reputation was lost by 1930 , when a New York Times critic realized that “ few outside a very small circle of close students of literary history in this country could iden- tify off - hand the name ...
... York , Halleck found refuge in the fast - paced world of New York's wealthiest entrepreneur , John Jacob Astor . In 1832 , Halleck was installed as Astor's right - hand man . Astor named him an original trustee of the Astor Li- brary ...