美国文学欣赏ToaWaterfowl
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• "To a Waterfowl" was first published in the North American Review in Volume 6, Issue 18, March 1818. It was later published in the collection Poems in 1821.
To a Waterfowl 致水鸟
by William Cullen Bryant
YLeabharlann Baiduuth and Education
• Bryant was born on November 3, 1794,He was the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell. His maternal ancestry traces back to passengers on the Mayflower; his father's, to colonists who arrived about a dozen years later. Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his boyhood home, is now a museum. After just two years at Williams College, he studied law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts, and he was admitted to the bar in 1815. He then began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day. On one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon; the sight moved him enough to write "To a Waterfowl".
Composition and publication history
• The inspiration for the poem occurred in December 1815 when Bryant, then 21, was walking from Cummington to Plainfield to look for a place to settle as a lawyer. The duck, flying across the sunset, seemed to Bryant as solitary a soul as himself, inspiring him to write the poem that evening.
Main works
• 1808 The Embargo 禁运，a satirical poem in reaction against Jefferson’s trade restrictions
• 1817 Thanatopsis 死亡冥想brought him his first success but also general attention to his extraordinary genius.
• Bryant developed an interest in poetry early in life. Under his father's tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. “The Embargo”, a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryant's Federalist political views. The first edition quickly sold out—partly because of the publicity earned by the poet's young age—and a second, expanded edition, which included Bryant's translation of Classical verse, was printed. The youth wrote little poetry while preparing to enter Williams College as a sophomore, but upon leaving Williams after a single year and then beginning to read law, he regenerated his passion for poetry through encounter with the English pre-Romantics and, particularly, William Wordsworth.
Critical response
• Matthew Arnold praised it as "the best short poem in the language", and the poet and critic Richard Wilbur has described it as "America's first flawless poem".
To a Waterfowl 致水鸟
by William Cullen Bryant
YLeabharlann Baiduuth and Education
• Bryant was born on November 3, 1794,He was the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell. His maternal ancestry traces back to passengers on the Mayflower; his father's, to colonists who arrived about a dozen years later. Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his boyhood home, is now a museum. After just two years at Williams College, he studied law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts, and he was admitted to the bar in 1815. He then began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day. On one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon; the sight moved him enough to write "To a Waterfowl".
Composition and publication history
• The inspiration for the poem occurred in December 1815 when Bryant, then 21, was walking from Cummington to Plainfield to look for a place to settle as a lawyer. The duck, flying across the sunset, seemed to Bryant as solitary a soul as himself, inspiring him to write the poem that evening.
Main works
• 1808 The Embargo 禁运，a satirical poem in reaction against Jefferson’s trade restrictions
• 1817 Thanatopsis 死亡冥想brought him his first success but also general attention to his extraordinary genius.
• Bryant developed an interest in poetry early in life. Under his father's tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. “The Embargo”, a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryant's Federalist political views. The first edition quickly sold out—partly because of the publicity earned by the poet's young age—and a second, expanded edition, which included Bryant's translation of Classical verse, was printed. The youth wrote little poetry while preparing to enter Williams College as a sophomore, but upon leaving Williams after a single year and then beginning to read law, he regenerated his passion for poetry through encounter with the English pre-Romantics and, particularly, William Wordsworth.
Critical response
• Matthew Arnold praised it as "the best short poem in the language", and the poet and critic Richard Wilbur has described it as "America's first flawless poem".