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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... . In fact , he had told a friend who had helped to plan the statue that " the likeness would not strike " without the umbrella and that he hoped another ad- mirer of his work had obtained " a sculptor cunning 3 Introduction.
... hoped he might " Wake from thy voiceless slumbers " and " Sing ! For our country . " Meanwhile , female admirers re- mained plentiful ; Valentine's Day of 1847 found married and single women alike writing poems to Halleck and requesting ...
... hoped ) in the future of democ- racy in the United States . Whitman saw social progress " come for thrice a thousand years " and addressed his readers one by one : " My comrade ! For you to share with me two greatnesses , and a third ...