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Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor (January 11, 1825 – December 19, 1878) was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat. As a poet, he was very popular, with a crowd of more than 4,000 attending a poetry reading once, which was a record that stood for 85 years.[2] His travelogues were popular in both the United States and Great Britain. He served in diplomatic posts in Russia and Prussia.

Bayard Taylor
Born(1825-01-11)January 11, 1825
Chester County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedDecember 19, 1878(1878-12-19) (aged 53)
Berlin, German Empire
Resting placeLongwood Cemetery, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania[1]
ChildrenLillian Bayard Taylor Kiliani
RelativesCharles Frederick Taylor (brother)
Signature

Life and work edit

Taylor was born on January 11, 1825,[3] in Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth son, the first to survive to maturity, of the Quaker couple Joseph and Rebecca (née Way) Taylor. His mother was of half Swiss origin[4] His father was a wealthy farmer. Bayard's youngest brother was Charles Frederick Taylor, a Union Army colonel killed in action at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

Bayard received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester, Pennsylvania, and later at nearby Unionville. At the age of seventeen, he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester.[5] The influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold encouraged him to write poetry. The volume that resulted, Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems, was published in 1844 and dedicated to Griswold.[6]

Using the money from his poetry and an advance for travel articles, he visited parts of England, France, Germany and Italy, making largely pedestrian tours for almost two years. He sent accounts of his travels to the New York Tribune, The Saturday Evening Post, and Gazette of the United States.[5]

In 1846, a collection of his articles was published in two volumes as Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff.[5] That publication resulted in an invitation to serve as an editorial assistant for Graham's Magazine for a few months in 1848.[7] That same year, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, hired Taylor and sent him to California to report on the gold rush. He returned by way of Mexico and published another two-volume collection of travel essays, El Dorado; or, Adventures in the Path of Empire (1850). Within two weeks of release, the books sold 10,000 copies in the U.S. and 30,000 in Great Britain.[5]

 
Illustration of San Francisco in November 1849, from publication El Dorado.

In 1849 Taylor married Mary Agnew, who died of tuberculosis the next year.[8] That same year, Taylor won a popular competition sponsored by P. T. Barnum to write an ode for the "Swedish Nightingale", singer Jenny Lind. His poem "Greetings to America" was set to music by Julius Benedict and performed by the singer at numerous concerts on her tour of the United States.[9]

In 1851 he traveled to Egypt, where he followed the Nile River as far as 12° 30' N. He also traveled in Palestine and Mediterranean countries, writing poetry based on his experiences. Toward the end of 1852, he sailed from England to Calcutta, and then to China, where he joined the expedition of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry to Japan.[5] The results of these journeys were published as A Journey to Central Africa; or, Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile (1854); The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain (1854); and A Visit to India, China and Japan in the Year 1853 (1855).[5]

He returned to the U.S. on December 20, 1853, and undertook a successful public lecturer tour that extended from Maine to Wisconsin. After two years, he went to northern Europe to study Swedish life, language and literature. The trip inspired his long narrative poem Lars. His series of articles Swedish Letters to the Tribune were republished as Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures (1857).

In Berlin in 1856, Taylor met the great German scientist Alexander von Humboldt, hoping to interview him for the New York Tribune. Humboldt was welcoming, and inquired whether they should speak English or German. Taylor planned to go to central Asia, where Humboldt had traveled in 1829. Taylor informed Humboldt of Washington Irving's death; Humboldt had met him in Paris. He saw Humboldt again in 1857 at Potsdam.[10]

In October 1857, he married Maria Hansen, the daughter of the Danish/German astronomer Peter Hansen. The couple spent the following winter in Greece.[5] In 1859 Taylor returned to the American West and lectured at San Francisco.

In 1862, he was appointed to the U.S. diplomatic service as secretary of legation at St. Petersburg,[11] and acting minister to Russia for a time during 1862–3 after the resignation of Ambassador Simon Cameron.[12]

 
Cedarcroft, Taylor's home.

He published his first novel Hannah Thurston in 1863. The newspaper The New York Times first praised him for "break[ing] new ground with such assured success".[13] A second much longer appreciation in the same newspaper was thoroughly negative, describing "one pointless, aimless situation leading to another of the same stamp, and so on in maddening succession". It concluded: "The platitudes and puerilities which might otherwise only raise a smile, when confronted with such pompous pretensions, excite the contempt of every man who has in him the feeblest instincts of common honesty in literature."[14] It proved successful enough for his publisher to announce another novel from him the next year.[15]

In 1864 Taylor and his wife Maria returned to the U.S. In 1866, Taylor traveled to Colorado and made a large loop through the northern mountains on horseback with a group that included William Byers, editor of the newspaper Rocky Mountain News. His letters describing this adventure were later compiled and published as Colorado: A Summer Trip.

In 1866, Taylor popularized outlaw James Fitzpatrick as swashbuckling hero Sandy Flash in his novel The Story of Kennett, set in Revolutionary War-era Pennsylvania.[16]

Taylor's novel Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania (1870), first serialized in The Atlantic, was described as a story of young man in rural Pennsylvania and "the troubles which arise from the want of a broader education and higher culture."[17] The story is believed to be based on the poets Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake, and since the late 20th century has been called America's first gay novel.[18] Taylor spoke at the dedication of a monument to Halleck in his native town, Guilford, Connecticut. He said that in establishing this monument to an American poet "we symbolize the intellectual growth of the American people.... The life of the poet who sleeps here represents the long period of transition between the appearance of American poetry and the creation of an appreciative and sympathetic audience for it."[19][20]

Taylor imitated and parodied the writings of various poets in Diversions of the Echo Club (London, 1873; Boston, 1876).[21] In 1874 Taylor traveled to Iceland to report for the Tribune on the one thousandth anniversary of the first European settlement there.

On July 4, 1876, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Bayard recited his National Ode to an enthusiastic crowd of more than four thousand, the largest audience for a poetry reading in the United States to that date and a record which stood until 1961. The ode was written at the request of the exhibition's organizers, after the task had been declined by several other eminent poets, including John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The work was reprinted in newspapers across the country and later published as a book in two separate editions.[2]

During March 1878, the U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment as United States Minister to Prussia. Mark Twain, who traveled to Europe on the same ship, was envious of Taylor's command of German.[22]

Taylor's travel writings were widely quoted by congressmen seeking to defend racial discrimination. Richard Townshend (D-IL) quoted passages from Taylor such as "the Chinese are morally, the most debased people on the face of the earth" and "A Chinese city is the greatest of all abominations."[23]

A few months after arriving in Berlin, Taylor died there on December 19, 1878. His body was returned to the U.S. and buried in Longwood Cemetery, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.[24] The New York Times published his obituary on its front page, referring to him as "a great traveler, both on land and paper".[25] Shortly after his death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a memorial poem in Taylor's memory, at the urging of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Legacy and honors edit

Evaluations edit

 
Grave of Bayard Taylor in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania

Though he wanted to be known most as a poet, Taylor was mostly recognized as a travel writer during his lifetime. Modern critics have generally accepted him as technically skilled in verse, but lacking imagination and, ultimately, consider his work as a conventional example of 19th-century sentimentalism.[27]

His translation of Faust, however, was recognized for its scholarly skill and remained in print through 1969.[27] According to the 1920 edition of Encyclopedia Americana:

It is by his translation of Faust, one of the finest attempts of the kind in any literature, that Taylor is generally known; yet as an original poet he stands well up in the second rank of Americans. His Poems of the Orient and his Pennsylvania ballads comprise his best work. His verse is finished and sonorous, but at times over-rhetorical.

According to the 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica:

Taylor's most ambitious productions in poetry—- his Masque of the Gods (Boston, 1872), Prince Deukalion; a lyrical drama (Boston, 1878), The Picture of St John (Boston, 1866), Lars; a Pastoral of Norway (Boston, 1873), and The Prophet; a tragedy (Boston, 1874)—- are marred by a ceaseless effort to overstrain his power. But he will be remembered by his poetic and excellent translation of Goethe's Faust (2 vols, Boston, 1870–71) in the original metres.

Taylor felt, in all truth, the torment and the ecstasy of verse; but, as a critical friend has written of him, his nature was so ardent, so full-blooded, that slight and common sensations intoxicated him, and he estimated their effect, and his power to transmit it to others, beyond the true value. He had, from the earliest period at which he began to compose, a distinct lyrical faculty: so keen indeed was his ear that he became too insistently haunted by the music of others, pre-eminently of Tennyson. But he had often a true and fine note of his own. His best short poems are The Metempsychosis of the Pine and the well-known Bedouin love-song.

In his critical essays Bayard Taylor had himself in no inconsiderable degree what he wrote of as that pure poetic insight which is the vital spirit of criticism. The most valuable of these prose dissertations are the Studies in German Literature (New York, 1879).

In Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography of 1889, Edmund Clarence Stedman gives the following critique:

His poetry is striking for qualities that appeal to the ear and eye, finished, sonorous in diction and rhythm, at times too rhetorical, but rich in sound, color, and metrical effects. His early models were Byron and Shelley, and his more ambitious lyrics and dramas exhibit the latter's peculiar, often vague, spirituality. Lars, somewhat after the manner of Tennyson, is his longest and most attractive narrative poem. Prince Deukalion was designed for a masterpiece; its blank verse and choric interludes are noble in spirit and mould. Some of Taylor's songs, oriental idyls, and the true and tender Pennsylvanian ballads, have passed into lasting favor, and show the native quality of his poetic gift. His fame rests securely upon his unequalled rendering of Faust in the original metres, of which the first and second parts appeared in 1870 and 1871. His commentary upon Part II for the first time interpreted the motive and allegory of that unique structure.

Published works edit

  • Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems (1844)
  • Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff (1846)
  • Rhymes of Travel: Ballads and Poems (1849)
  • El Dorado; or, Adventures in the Path of Empire (1850)
  • Romances, Lyrics, and Songs (1852)
  • A Journey to Central Africa; or, Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile (1854)
  • (1855)
  • Poems of the Orient (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855)
  • Poems of Home and Travel (1856)
  • Cyclopedia of Modern Travel (1856)
  • Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures (1857)
  •   The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain. (1859)
  • View A-Foot, or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff (1859)
  • The Life, Travels and Books of Alexander Von Humboldt (1859)
  • At Home and Abroad, First Series: A Sketch-book of Life, Scenery, and Men (1859)
  • Cyclopaedia of Modern Travel, volume I (1861)
  • Prose Writings: India, China, and Japan (1862)
  • Travels in Greece and Russia, with an Excursion to Crete (1859)
  • Poet's Journal (1863)
  • Hanna Thurston (1863)
  • John Godfrey's Fortunes Related by Himself: A Story of American Life (1864)
  • A Cruise on Lake Ladoga (1864)
  • The Poems of Bayard Taylor (1865)
  • The Story of Kennett (1866)
  • A Visit to the Balearic Islands, Complete in Two Parts (1867)
  • The Picture of St. John (1867)
  • Colorado: A Summer Trip (1867)
  • The Little Land Of Appenzell (1867)
  • The Island of Maddalena with a Distant View of Caprera (1868)
  • The Land of Paoli (1868)
  • Catalonian Bridle-Roads (1868)
  • The Kyffhauser and Its Legend (1868)
  • By-Ways of Europe (1869)
  • Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania (1870)
  • The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln (1870)
  • Faust: A Tragedy Translated in the Original Metres (1870–1871)
  • Sights in and around Yedo (1871)
  • Northern Travel (1871)
  • Beauty and the Beast: And Tales of Home (1872)
  • Japan in Our Day (1872)
  • The Masque of the Gods (1872)
  • The Heart of Arabia (1872)
  • Travels in South Africa (1872)
  • At Home and Abroad: A Sketch-Book of Life, Scenery and Men (1872)
  • Diversions of the Echo Club (1873)
  • Lars: A Pastoral of Norway (1873)
  • Wonders of the Yellowstone – The Illustrated Library of Travel, Exploration and Adventure (with James Richardson) (1873)
  • Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures – Sweden, Denmark and Lapland (1873)
  • Lake Regions of Central Africa (1873)
  • The Prophet: A Tragedy (1874)
  • Home Pastorals, Ballads & Lyrics (1875)
  • Egypt And Iceland In The Year 1874 (1875)
  • Boys of Other Countries: Stories for American Boys (1876)
  • Echo Club and Other Literary Diversions (1876)
  • Picturesque Europe Part Thirty-Six (1877)
  • The National Ode: The Memorial Freedom Poem (1877)
  • Bismarck: His Authentic Biography (1877)
  • Assyrian Night-Song (August 1877)
  • Prince Deukalion (1878)
  • Picturesque Europe (1878)
  • Studies in German Literature (1879)
  • Travels in Arabia (1892)
  • A School History of Germany (1882)

Editions edit

Collected editions of his Poetical Works and his Dramatic Works were published at Boston in 1888; his Life and Letters (Boston, 2 vols., 1884) were edited by his wife and Horace Scudder.

Marie Hansen Taylor translated into German Bayard's Greece (Leipzig, 1858), Hannah Thurston (Hamburg, 1863), Story of Kennett (Gotha, 1868), Tales of Home (Berlin, 1879), Studies in German Literature (Leipzig, 1880), and notes to Faust, both parts (Leipzig, 1881). After her husband's death, she edited, with notes, his Dramatic Works (1880), and in the same year his Poems in a "Household Edition", and brought together his Critical Essays and Literary Notes. In 1885 she prepared a school edition of Lars, with notes and a sketch of its author's life.

Notes edit

  1. ^ Joseph A. Lordi. Kennett Square. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006, p. 104.
  2. ^ a b Armenti, Peter (July 2, 2015). "Bayard Taylor's "National Ode": The "Crowning Success" of Philadelphia's Fourth of July Centennial Celebration". blogs.loc.gov/catbird. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  3. ^ Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 38. ISBN 0-86576-008-X
  4. ^ Wermuth, Paul Charles. Bayard Taylor. Trained Publishers, 1973: 13. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2
  5. ^ a b c d e f g   One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Taylor, Bayard". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 467. This cites Smyth (1896) and Howells (1901).
  6. ^ Bayless, Joy. Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943. p. 128
  7. ^ Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 273. ISBN 1-932109-45-5.
  8. ^ "Cedarcroft: Bayard Taylor House", Living Places Website, with excerpt from 1971 nomination to National Register of Historic Places, accessed May 30, 2011
  9. ^ "The Vault at Pfaff's – Biographies – Individuals," January 21, 2013, at the Wayback Machine A site dedicated to denizens of a popular 19th-century watering hole, frequented by such characters as Walt Whitman, accessed April 19, 2015
  10. ^ Helmut de Terra, Alexander von Humboldt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1955, pp.363–65.
  11. ^ "News from Washington". The New York Times. March 29, 1862. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  12. ^ "Important from Washington". The New York Times. February 14, 1863. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  13. ^ "Hannah Thurston. A Story of American Life". The New York Times. November 26, 1863. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  14. ^ "Hannah Thurston. A Story of American Life". The New York Times. December 27, 1863. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  15. ^ "Literary Gossip". The New York Times. September 10, 1864. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  16. ^ Warden, Rosemary S. (1995). ""The Infamous Fitch": The Tory Bandit, James Fitzpatrick of Chester County". Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies: 376–387. ISSN 2153-2109.
  17. ^ "New Publications" (PDF). The New York Times. December 8, 1970. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  18. ^ Austen, Roger (1977). Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. pp. 9–10.
  19. ^ "The Halleck Monument" (PDF). The New York Times. July 9, 1869. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
  20. ^ Hallock, John W. M. The American Byron: Homosexuality and the Fall of Fitz-Greene Halleck. University of Wisconsin Press, 2000: 151. ISBN 0-299-16804-2
  21. ^ Haskell, Juliana (1908). Bayard Taylor's translation of Goethe's Faust. Columbia University Press. p. 13.
  22. ^ Fisher, Henry W. (1922). Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field: Tales They Told to a Fellow Correspondent. New York. p. 139.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  23. ^ 13 Cong. Rec. 2214
  24. ^ Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 200. ISBN 0-19-503186-5
  25. ^ Melton, Jeffrey Alan. Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism: The Tide of a Great Popular Movement. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2002: 81. ISBN 0-8173-1160-2
  26. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  27. ^ a b Rennick, Andrew. "Bayard Taylor" in Writers of the American Renaissance: An A to Z Guide. Denise D. Knight, editor. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003: 354. ISBN 0-313-32140-X

References edit

  • Cary, Richard (1952). The Genteel Circle: Bayard Taylor and his New York Friends. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • Howells, William Dean (1901). Literary Friends and Acquaintance : A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship. New York: Harper & Brothers.
  • Smyth, Albert (1896). Bayard Taylor (American men of Letters series). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
  • Taylor, Bayard (1997). Selected Letters of Bayard Taylor. Bucknell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8387-5363-7.
  • Wermuth, Paul (1973). Bayard Taylor (Twayne's United States authors series). New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8057-0718-2.
  • Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1889). "Taylor, Bayard" . In Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J. (eds.). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

Attribution

External links edit

  • Works by Bayard Taylor at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Bayard Taylor at Internet Archive
  • Works by Bayard Taylor at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
  • Online Books by Bayard Taylor from The Online Books Page
  • Works with text by Bayard Taylor
  • Guide to the Bayard Taylor Collection 1850–1871 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by United States Envoy to Prussia
May 7, 1878 – December 19, 1878
Succeeded by

bayard, taylor, january, 1825, december, 1878, american, poet, literary, critic, translator, travel, author, diplomat, poet, very, popular, with, crowd, more, than, attending, poetry, reading, once, which, record, that, stood, years, travelogues, were, popular. Bayard Taylor January 11 1825 December 19 1878 was an American poet literary critic translator travel author and diplomat As a poet he was very popular with a crowd of more than 4 000 attending a poetry reading once which was a record that stood for 85 years 2 His travelogues were popular in both the United States and Great Britain He served in diplomatic posts in Russia and Prussia Bayard TaylorBorn 1825 01 11 January 11 1825Chester County Pennsylvania U S DiedDecember 19 1878 1878 12 19 aged 53 Berlin German EmpireResting placeLongwood Cemetery Kennett Square Pennsylvania 1 ChildrenLillian Bayard Taylor KilianiRelativesCharles Frederick Taylor brother Signature Contents 1 Life and work 2 Legacy and honors 3 Evaluations 4 Published works 4 1 Editions 5 Notes 6 References 7 External linksLife and work editTaylor was born on January 11 1825 3 in Kennett Square in Chester County Pennsylvania He was the fourth son the first to survive to maturity of the Quaker couple Joseph and Rebecca nee Way Taylor His mother was of half Swiss origin 4 His father was a wealthy farmer Bayard s youngest brother was Charles Frederick Taylor a Union Army colonel killed in action at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 Bayard received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester Pennsylvania and later at nearby Unionville At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester 5 The influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold encouraged him to write poetry The volume that resulted Ximena or the Battle of the Sierra Morena and other Poems was published in 1844 and dedicated to Griswold 6 Using the money from his poetry and an advance for travel articles he visited parts of England France Germany and Italy making largely pedestrian tours for almost two years He sent accounts of his travels to the New York Tribune The Saturday Evening Post and Gazette of the United States 5 In 1846 a collection of his articles was published in two volumes as Views Afoot or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff 5 That publication resulted in an invitation to serve as an editorial assistant for Graham s Magazine for a few months in 1848 7 That same year Horace Greeley editor of the New York Tribune hired Taylor and sent him to California to report on the gold rush He returned by way of Mexico and published another two volume collection of travel essays El Dorado or Adventures in the Path of Empire 1850 Within two weeks of release the books sold 10 000 copies in the U S and 30 000 in Great Britain 5 nbsp Illustration of San Francisco in November 1849 from publication El Dorado In 1849 Taylor married Mary Agnew who died of tuberculosis the next year 8 That same year Taylor won a popular competition sponsored by P T Barnum to write an ode for the Swedish Nightingale singer Jenny Lind His poem Greetings to America was set to music by Julius Benedict and performed by the singer at numerous concerts on her tour of the United States 9 In 1851 he traveled to Egypt where he followed the Nile River as far as 12 30 N He also traveled in Palestine and Mediterranean countries writing poetry based on his experiences Toward the end of 1852 he sailed from England to Calcutta and then to China where he joined the expedition of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry to Japan 5 The results of these journeys were published as A Journey to Central Africa or Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile 1854 The Lands of the Saracen or Pictures of Palestine Asia Minor Sicily and Spain 1854 and A Visit to India China and Japan in the Year 1853 1855 5 He returned to the U S on December 20 1853 and undertook a successful public lecturer tour that extended from Maine to Wisconsin After two years he went to northern Europe to study Swedish life language and literature The trip inspired his long narrative poem Lars His series of articles Swedish Letters to the Tribune were republished as Northern Travel Summer and Winter Pictures 1857 In Berlin in 1856 Taylor met the great German scientist Alexander von Humboldt hoping to interview him for the New York Tribune Humboldt was welcoming and inquired whether they should speak English or German Taylor planned to go to central Asia where Humboldt had traveled in 1829 Taylor informed Humboldt of Washington Irving s death Humboldt had met him in Paris He saw Humboldt again in 1857 at Potsdam 10 In October 1857 he married Maria Hansen the daughter of the Danish German astronomer Peter Hansen The couple spent the following winter in Greece 5 In 1859 Taylor returned to the American West and lectured at San Francisco In 1862 he was appointed to the U S diplomatic service as secretary of legation at St Petersburg 11 and acting minister to Russia for a time during 1862 3 after the resignation of Ambassador Simon Cameron 12 nbsp Cedarcroft Taylor s home He published his first novel Hannah Thurston in 1863 The newspaper The New York Times first praised him for break ing new ground with such assured success 13 A second much longer appreciation in the same newspaper was thoroughly negative describing one pointless aimless situation leading to another of the same stamp and so on in maddening succession It concluded The platitudes and puerilities which might otherwise only raise a smile when confronted with such pompous pretensions excite the contempt of every man who has in him the feeblest instincts of common honesty in literature 14 It proved successful enough for his publisher to announce another novel from him the next year 15 In 1864 Taylor and his wife Maria returned to the U S In 1866 Taylor traveled to Colorado and made a large loop through the northern mountains on horseback with a group that included William Byers editor of the newspaper Rocky Mountain News His letters describing this adventure were later compiled and published as Colorado A Summer Trip In 1866 Taylor popularized outlaw James Fitzpatrick as swashbuckling hero Sandy Flash in his novel The Story of Kennett set in Revolutionary War era Pennsylvania 16 Taylor s novel Joseph and His Friend A Story of Pennsylvania 1870 first serialized in The Atlantic was described as a story of young man in rural Pennsylvania and the troubles which arise from the want of a broader education and higher culture 17 The story is believed to be based on the poets Fitz Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake and since the late 20th century has been called America s first gay novel 18 Taylor spoke at the dedication of a monument to Halleck in his native town Guilford Connecticut He said that in establishing this monument to an American poet we symbolize the intellectual growth of the American people The life of the poet who sleeps here represents the long period of transition between the appearance of American poetry and the creation of an appreciative and sympathetic audience for it 19 20 Taylor imitated and parodied the writings of various poets in Diversions of the Echo Club London 1873 Boston 1876 21 In 1874 Taylor traveled to Iceland to report for the Tribune on the one thousandth anniversary of the first European settlement there On July 4 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia Bayard recited his National Ode to an enthusiastic crowd of more than four thousand the largest audience for a poetry reading in the United States to that date and a record which stood until 1961 The ode was written at the request of the exhibition s organizers after the task had been declined by several other eminent poets including John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The work was reprinted in newspapers across the country and later published as a book in two separate editions 2 During March 1878 the U S Senate confirmed his appointment as United States Minister to Prussia Mark Twain who traveled to Europe on the same ship was envious of Taylor s command of German 22 Taylor s travel writings were widely quoted by congressmen seeking to defend racial discrimination Richard Townshend D IL quoted passages from Taylor such as the Chinese are morally the most debased people on the face of the earth and A Chinese city is the greatest of all abominations 23 A few months after arriving in Berlin Taylor died there on December 19 1878 His body was returned to the U S and buried in Longwood Cemetery Kennett Square Pennsylvania 24 The New York Times published his obituary on its front page referring to him as a great traveler both on land and paper 25 Shortly after his death Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a memorial poem in Taylor s memory at the urging of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr Legacy and honors editCedarcroft Taylor s home from 1859 to 1874 which he built near Kennett Square is preserved as a National Historic Landmark The Bayard Taylor School was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 26 The Bayard Taylor Memorial Library is in Kennett Square Evaluations edit nbsp Grave of Bayard Taylor in Kennett Square PennsylvaniaThough he wanted to be known most as a poet Taylor was mostly recognized as a travel writer during his lifetime Modern critics have generally accepted him as technically skilled in verse but lacking imagination and ultimately consider his work as a conventional example of 19th century sentimentalism 27 His translation of Faust however was recognized for its scholarly skill and remained in print through 1969 27 According to the 1920 edition of Encyclopedia Americana It is by his translation of Faust one of the finest attempts of the kind in any literature that Taylor is generally known yet as an original poet he stands well up in the second rank of Americans His Poems of the Orient and his Pennsylvania ballads comprise his best work His verse is finished and sonorous but at times over rhetorical According to the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica Taylor s most ambitious productions in poetry his Masque of the Gods Boston 1872 Prince Deukalion a lyrical drama Boston 1878 The Picture of St John Boston 1866 Lars a Pastoral of Norway Boston 1873 and The Prophet a tragedy Boston 1874 are marred by a ceaseless effort to overstrain his power But he will be remembered by his poetic and excellent translation of Goethe s Faust 2 vols Boston 1870 71 in the original metres Taylor felt in all truth the torment and the ecstasy of verse but as a critical friend has written of him his nature was so ardent so full blooded that slight and common sensations intoxicated him and he estimated their effect and his power to transmit it to others beyond the true value He had from the earliest period at which he began to compose a distinct lyrical faculty so keen indeed was his ear that he became too insistently haunted by the music of others pre eminently of Tennyson But he had often a true and fine note of his own His best short poems are The Metempsychosis of the Pine and the well known Bedouin love song In his critical essays Bayard Taylor had himself in no inconsiderable degree what he wrote of as that pure poetic insight which is the vital spirit of criticism The most valuable of these prose dissertations are the Studies in German Literature New York 1879 In Appletons Cyclopaedia of American Biography of 1889 Edmund Clarence Stedman gives the following critique His poetry is striking for qualities that appeal to the ear and eye finished sonorous in diction and rhythm at times too rhetorical but rich in sound color and metrical effects His early models were Byron and Shelley and his more ambitious lyrics and dramas exhibit the latter s peculiar often vague spirituality Lars somewhat after the manner of Tennyson is his longest and most attractive narrative poem Prince Deukalion was designed for a masterpiece its blank verse and choric interludes are noble in spirit and mould Some of Taylor s songs oriental idyls and the true and tender Pennsylvanian ballads have passed into lasting favor and show the native quality of his poetic gift His fame rests securely upon his unequalled rendering of Faust in the original metres of which the first and second parts appeared in 1870 and 1871 His commentary upon Part II for the first time interpreted the motive and allegory of that unique structure Published works editXimena or the Battle of the Sierra Morena and other Poems 1844 Views Afoot or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff 1846 Rhymes of Travel Ballads and Poems 1849 El Dorado or Adventures in the Path of Empire 1850 Romances Lyrics and Songs 1852 A Journey to Central Africa or Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile 1854 A Visit to India China and Japan in the Year 1853 1855 Poems of the Orient Boston Ticknor and Fields 1855 Poems of Home and Travel 1856 Cyclopedia of Modern Travel 1856 Northern Travel Summer and Winter Pictures 1857 nbsp The Lands of the Saracen or Pictures of Palestine Asia Minor Sicily and Spain 1859 View A Foot or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff 1859 The Life Travels and Books of Alexander Von Humboldt 1859 At Home and Abroad First Series A Sketch book of Life Scenery and Men 1859 Cyclopaedia of Modern Travel volume I 1861 Prose Writings India China and Japan 1862 Travels in Greece and Russia with an Excursion to Crete 1859 Poet s Journal 1863 Hanna Thurston 1863 John Godfrey s Fortunes Related by Himself A Story of American Life 1864 A Cruise on Lake Ladoga 1864 The Poems of Bayard Taylor 1865 The Story of Kennett 1866 A Visit to the Balearic Islands Complete in Two Parts 1867 The Picture of St John 1867 Colorado A Summer Trip 1867 The Little Land Of Appenzell 1867 The Island of Maddalena with a Distant View of Caprera 1868 The Land of Paoli 1868 Catalonian Bridle Roads 1868 The Kyffhauser and Its Legend 1868 By Ways of Europe 1869 Joseph and His Friend A Story of Pennsylvania 1870 The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln 1870 Faust A Tragedy Translated in the Original Metres 1870 1871 Sights in and around Yedo 1871 Northern Travel 1871 Beauty and the Beast And Tales of Home 1872 Japan in Our Day 1872 The Masque of the Gods 1872 The Heart of Arabia 1872 Travels in South Africa 1872 At Home and Abroad A Sketch Book of Life Scenery and Men 1872 Diversions of the Echo Club 1873 Lars A Pastoral of Norway 1873 Wonders of the Yellowstone The Illustrated Library of Travel Exploration and Adventure with James Richardson 1873 Northern Travel Summer and Winter Pictures Sweden Denmark and Lapland 1873 Lake Regions of Central Africa 1873 The Prophet A Tragedy 1874 Home Pastorals Ballads amp Lyrics 1875 Egypt And Iceland In The Year 1874 1875 Boys of Other Countries Stories for American Boys 1876 Echo Club and Other Literary Diversions 1876 Picturesque Europe Part Thirty Six 1877 The National Ode The Memorial Freedom Poem 1877 Bismarck His Authentic Biography 1877 Assyrian Night Song August 1877 Prince Deukalion 1878 Picturesque Europe 1878 Studies in German Literature 1879 Travels in Arabia 1892 A School History of Germany 1882 Editions edit Collected editions of his Poetical Works and his Dramatic Works were published at Boston in 1888 his Life and Letters Boston 2 vols 1884 were edited by his wife and Horace Scudder Marie Hansen Taylor translated into German Bayard s Greece Leipzig 1858 Hannah Thurston Hamburg 1863 Story of Kennett Gotha 1868 Tales of Home Berlin 1879 Studies in German Literature Leipzig 1880 and notes to Faust both parts Leipzig 1881 After her husband s death she edited with notes his Dramatic Works 1880 and in the same year his Poems in a Household Edition and brought together his Critical Essays and Literary Notes In 1885 she prepared a school edition of Lars with notes and a sketch of its author s life Notes edit Joseph A Lordi Kennett Square Charleston S C Arcadia Publishing 2006 p 104 a b Armenti Peter July 2 2015 Bayard Taylor s National Ode The Crowning Success of Philadelphia s Fourth of July Centennial Celebration blogs loc gov catbird Library of Congress Retrieved December 29 2020 Nelson Randy F The Almanac of American Letters Los Altos California William Kaufmann Inc 1981 38 ISBN 0 86576 008 X Wermuth Paul Charles Bayard Taylor Trained Publishers 1973 13 ISBN 0 8057 0718 2 a b c d e f g nbsp One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Chisholm Hugh ed 1911 Taylor Bayard Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 26 11th ed Cambridge University Press p 467 This cites Smyth 1896 and Howells 1901 Bayless Joy Rufus Wilmot Griswold Poe s Literary Executor Nashville Vanderbilt University Press 1943 p 128 Oberholtzer Ellis Paxson The Literary History of Philadelphia Philadelphia George W Jacobs amp Co 1906 273 ISBN 1 932109 45 5 Cedarcroft Bayard Taylor House Living Places Website with excerpt from 1971 nomination to National Register of Historic Places accessed May 30 2011 The Vault at Pfaff s Biographies Individuals Archived January 21 2013 at the Wayback Machine A site dedicated to denizens of a popular 19th century watering hole frequented by such characters as Walt Whitman accessed April 19 2015 Helmut de Terra Alexander von Humboldt New York Alfred A Knopf 1955 pp 363 65 News from Washington The New York Times March 29 1862 Retrieved May 9 2015 Important from Washington The New York Times February 14 1863 Retrieved May 9 2015 Hannah Thurston A Story of American Life The New York Times November 26 1863 Retrieved May 9 2015 Hannah Thurston A Story of American Life The New York Times December 27 1863 Retrieved May 9 2015 Literary Gossip The New York Times September 10 1864 Retrieved May 9 2015 Warden Rosemary S 1995 The Infamous Fitch The Tory Bandit James Fitzpatrick of Chester County Pennsylvania History A Journal of Mid Atlantic Studies 376 387 ISSN 2153 2109 New Publications PDF The New York Times December 8 1970 Retrieved May 9 2015 Austen Roger 1977 Playing the Game The Homosexual Novel in America Indianapolis Bobbs Merrill pp 9 10 The Halleck Monument PDF The New York Times July 9 1869 Retrieved May 9 2015 Hallock John W M The American Byron Homosexuality and the Fall of Fitz Greene Halleck University of Wisconsin Press 2000 151 ISBN 0 299 16804 2 Haskell Juliana 1908 Bayard Taylor s translation of Goethe s Faust Columbia University Press p 13 Fisher Henry W 1922 Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field Tales They Told to a Fellow Correspondent New York p 139 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link 13 Cong Rec 2214 Ehrlich Eugene and Gorton Carruth The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States New York Oxford University Press 1982 200 ISBN 0 19 503186 5 Melton Jeffrey Alan Mark Twain Travel Books and Tourism The Tide of a Great Popular Movement Tuscaloosa The University of Alabama Press 2002 81 ISBN 0 8173 1160 2 National Register Information System National Register of Historic Places National Park Service July 9 2010 a b Rennick Andrew Bayard Taylor in Writers of the American Renaissance An A to Z Guide Denise D Knight editor Westport CT Greenwood Press 2003 354 ISBN 0 313 32140 XReferences editCary Richard 1952 The Genteel Circle Bayard Taylor and his New York Friends Ithaca NY Cornell University Press Howells William Dean 1901 Literary Friends and Acquaintance A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship New York Harper amp Brothers Smyth Albert 1896 Bayard Taylor American men of Letters series Boston MA Houghton Mifflin Taylor Bayard 1997 Selected Letters of Bayard Taylor Bucknell University Press ISBN 978 0 8387 5363 7 Wermuth Paul 1973 Bayard Taylor Twayne s United States authors series New York Twayne Publishers ISBN 978 0 8057 0718 2 Stedman Edmund Clarence 1889 Taylor Bayard In Wilson J G Fiske J eds Appletons Cyclopaedia of American Biography New York D Appleton Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Rines George Edwin ed 1920 Taylor James Bayard Encyclopedia Americana External links editBayard Taylor at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Texts from Wikisource nbsp Data from Wikidata Bayard Taylor Library Biography Works by Bayard Taylor at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Bayard Taylor at Internet Archive Works by Bayard Taylor at LibriVox public domain audiobooks nbsp Online Books by Bayard Taylor from The Online Books Page Works with text by Bayard Taylor Guide to the Bayard Taylor Collection 1850 1871 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research CenterDiplomatic postsPreceded byBancroft Davis United States Envoy to PrussiaMay 7 1878 December 19 1878 Succeeded byAndrew D White Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Bayard Taylor amp oldid 1177783459, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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