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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... writing it at a young age . James Grant Wilson states that " The Tempest " is Halleck's earliest published poem . Written at fourteen , it did not appear in Hours at Home until sixty - four years later . Other poems , however , were ...
... written on New Year's Day 1820 , Halleck told Maria that Fanny was written " to render my solitary hours less irksome . " 28 Although begun in summer , Fanny was not pub- lished until late December 1819. It was an immediate bestseller ...
... writing . His new poems were intended for publication and shifted to public issues . While dating Halleck's poems remains problem- atic , at least three minor poems were written about this time . Halleck's close friend , Charles P ...