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 ROBERT FROST1874 – 1963
In becoming one of America’s most loved and respected poets, Robert Frost displayed the same rugged persistence and determination exhibited by the rural New Englanders he depicted in his poems. Although he eventually received four Pulitzer Prizes and read at a presidential inauguration, Frost had a difficult time achieving success as a poet. Only after years of rejection by book and magazine publishers did he finally receive the acceptance for which he worked so hard.
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Frost was born in San Francisco, but his father died when he was eleven and his mother moved the family to Lawrence, Massachusetts. After graduating from high school, he briefly attended Dartmouth College. Disliking college life, he left school and spent time working as a farmer, a mill hand, a newspaper writer and a schoolteacher. During his spare time, he wrote poetry and dreamed of some day being able to support himself by writing alone.
After marrying and tending a farm in New Hampshire for ten years, Frost moved to England in 1912, hoping to establish himself as a poet. While in England he became friends with a number of well-known poets, including Ezra Pound and published two collections of poetry, A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914). When he returned home in 1915, he discovered that his success in England had spread to the United States.
Frost went on to publish five more volumes of poetry, for which he received many awards. He also taught at Amherst, the University of Michigan, Harvard and Dartmouth; lectured and read at dozens of other schools; and farmed in Vermont and New Hampshire. In 1960,at John F. Kennedy’s invitation, Frost became the first poet to read his work at a presidential inauguration.
Frost’s poetry was popular not only among critics and intellectuals, but also among the general public. In his poems he painted vivid portraits of the New England landscape and captured the flavor of New England life using traditional verse forms and conversational language. Despite their apparent simplicity, however, his poems are filled with hidden meanings, forcing us to delve beneath the surface to fully appreciate his work.
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JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 1807 – 1892
John Greenleaf Whittier stands apart from the other Fireside Poets in several ways. Unlike Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell, Whittier was born in poverty and received virtually no formal education. He was also more deeply involved with the social issues of his time than were the other poets. Finally, because of his devotion to the abolitionist movement, Whittier, unlike other poets, did not gain national prominence as a poet until late in his life.
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Whittier was born and raised hear Haverhill, Massachusetts. His parents were Quakers, who taught him to believe in hard work, simplicity, pacifism, religious devotion and social justice. Because he worked long hours on the debt-ridden family farm, Whittier suffered from poor health throughout much of his childhood. Though he was able to attend school for only one year, he educated himself by reading – primarily the Bible and other religious writings and the poetry of Scottish poet Robert Burns. During his teens he began writing poetry, and when he was eighteen his first poem was published in a local newspaper.
As a young man, Whittier because deeply committed to the abolitionist movement. He worked as a writer and editor for antislavery newspapers, wrote a large number of antislavery poems, spoke at abolitionist rallies, and became active in politics, serving a term in the Massachusetts legislature. Unfortunately, Whittier’s dedication to abolitionism prevented him from gaining national recognition as a poet until after the Civil War.
When the war ended, Whittier turned away from politics, focused his attention on writing poetry, and establishing himself as one of the country’s leading poets. He earned national fame in1866, when he published his most highly regarded work, Snowbound. In this poem and in many later poems, Whittier vividly depicts the warmth and simplicity of life in rural New England.
As the way of life depicted in his poetry disappeared, the popularity of Whittier’s poems grew. By the time of his death, Whittier had enjoyed more than twenty-five years of success as a poet. Yet he never allowed his success to affect his warmth, simplicity, and modesty and he remained faithful at all times to his social and spiritual convictions.
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NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1804 – 1864
Despite is admiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne found it impossible to accept the optimistic worldview of the Transcendentalists. Haunted by the intolerance and cruelty of his Puritan ancestors, Hawthorne viewed evil as one of the dominant forces in the world. As a result, his works express a gloomy vision of the world, which contrasts sharply with the positive view of the Transcendentalists.
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Hawthorne was born in Salem Massachusetts, a descendant of a prominent Puritan family. His ancestors included a judge known for his persecution of the Quakers and a judge who played an important role in the Salem witchcraft trials. Though Hawthorne himself was not a Puritan, he was deeply aware of the actions of his ancestors, and his character was shaped by a sense of inherited guilt.
After graduating from Bowdoin College in Maine in 1825, Hawthorne lived in seclusion in his mother’s house in Salem for twelve years, devoting his energy to developing his skills as a writer. Hawthorne’s self-imposed isolation lasted until 1837, when he published his first collection of stories, Twice-Told Tales. The book sold poorly, but it established him as a respected writer.
After moving out of his mother’s house, Hawthorne lived briefly at Brook Farm, the Transcendentalist commune. Then, in 1842,he married Sophia Peabody and moved to the Old Manse at Concord, Massachusetts, where Emerson lived. While living in Concord, he became a friend of both Emerson and Thoreau and published a second collection of stories, Mosses from an Old Manse (1846).
In 1850 he published The Scarlet Letter, a powerful novel about sin and guilt among early Puritans. The Scarlet Letter was extremely successful earning Hawthorne international fame. During the next two years, Hawthorne published two more novels, The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and The Blithedale Romance (1852).
When his college friend Franklin Pierce became President, Hawthorne was made the American counsel at Liverpool, England. After spending several years in England and Italy, Hawthorne returned to Massachusetts. Hawthorne’s experiences in Italy provided him with the material for his final novel, The Marble Faun (1860). Four years after the book’s publication, Hawthorne died in his sleep while on a walking tour of New Hampshire.
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RALPH WALDO EMERSON 1803 – 1882
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an essayist, a poet, an orator, and more than anything else, a philosopher. Throughout the course of his life, Emerson’s mind was constantly in motion, bringing forth new ideas and refining and redefining his view of the world. As a result, Emerson’s philosophy was reflected in all of his work- his essays, his poems and his lectures.
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Emerson was born in Boston, the son of a Unitarian minister. When Emerson was eight, his father died leaving the family in a state of poverty. Despite his family’s financial difficulties, Emerson received a thorough education. At the age of fourteen, he entered Harvard where he began recording his ideas in a journal. After his graduation, Emerson taught for several years before deciding to become a minister. In 1825 Emerson entered Harvard Divinity School. Four years later, he became the pastor of the Second Church of Boston.
Saddened by the death of his young wife, Ellen and dissatisfied with the spiritual restrictions of Unitarianism, Emerson resigned his ministry in1832. He settled in Concord, Massachusetts, eventually remarried, and began his lifelong career of writing and lecturing.
Duringthe1830’s and 1840’s, Emerson and a small group of intellectuals gathered regularly to discuss philosophy, religion, and literature. This group, which came to be known as the Transcendental Club, developed a philosophical system that stressed intuition, individuality, and self-reliance. In 1836 Emerson – the group’s most influential member – published Nature, a lengthy essay that became the Transcendental Club’s unofficial statement of belief.
Emerson first achieved national fame in 1841 when he published Essays, a collection of essays based on material from his journals and lectures. Emerson went on to publish several more volumes of essays, including Essays, Second Volume (1844), Representative Man (1849) and The Conduct of Life (1860). Though Emerson was known mostly for his essays and lectures, he also published two successful volumes of poetry, Poems (1847), and May-Day and Other Pieces (1867).
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HENRY DAVID THOREAU 1817 – 1862
When Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-four, his work had received little recognition. Yet, he had achieved an inner success that few others have experienced. Speaking at Thoreau’s funeral, Ralph Waldo Emerson commented, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost…But he, at least is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world.”
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Thoreau was born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard, Thoreau became a teacher. When his objection to corporal punishment forced him to quit his first job, he and his older brother John opened their own school. The school was quite successful, but they had to close it when John became ill.
In 1842, Thoreau moved into Emerson’s house. He lived there for two years, performing odd jobs to pay for his room and board. Thoreau became Emerson’s close friend and devoted disciple. Thoreau dedicated himself to testing Transcendentalist philosophy through experience. By simplifying his needs, Thoreau was able to devote the rest of his life to exploring and writing about the spiritual relationship between humanity and nature and supporting his political and social beliefs.
For two years (1845 – 1847) Thoreau lived alone in a cabin he built himself at Walden Pond. Thoreau’s experiences during this period provided him with the material for his masterwork, Walden (1854). Condensing his experiences at Walden Pond into one year, Thoreau used the four seasons as a structural framework for the book. A unique blend of natural observation, social criticism and philosophical insight, Walden is now generally regarded s the supreme work of Transcendental literature.
Though Thoreau’s work was for the most part ignored during his lifetime, his reputation has steadily grown since his death. His work has inspired and influenced writers, environmentalists, and social and political leaders. It has made generations of readers aware of the possibilities of the human spirit and the limitations of society.
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