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Joseph Rodman Drake

 
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Joseph Rodman Drake
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Drake, Joseph Rodman, 1795-1820, American poet and satirist, b. New York City. Under the name "The Croakers," he and his friend Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote a series of light satirical verses for the New York Evening Post (1819, first complete ed. 1860). Drake's longest serious poem is "The Culprit Fay" (in The Culprit Fay and Other Poems, 1835); his poem "The American Flag" was long a standard patriotic declamation. Halleck's elegy beginning, "Green be the turf above thee," was written upon Drake's death.

Bibliography

See F. L. Pleadwell, ed., The Life and Works of Joseph Rodman Drake (1935).

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Works: Works by Joseph Rodman Drake
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(1795-1820)

1816"The Culprit Fay." A six-hundred-line poem set in the Hudson River Valley about a fairy who falls in love with a mortal maiden. Drake's attempt to import fairy legends to the United States is best known for its natural descriptions. Dying of tuberculosis in 1820, he asked his wife to destroy the manuscripts of his "trifles in rhyme," but she did not, and the poem would appear in 1835 in The Culprit Fay and Other Poems.
1819The Croaker Papers. This collection of Knickerbocker poetry provides light, satirical criticisms, usually of local politicians. The poems had first appeared anonymously in the New York Evening Post, and while many praised them, Edgar Allan Poe had criticized them as careless and ephemeral. Drake's early death from tuberculosis in 1820 prompted Halleck to write "On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake," considered one of the finest elegies by an American.
1835The Culprit Fay and Other Poems. This posthumous selection of Drake's works (he died in 1820) includes his most popular pieces, the title poem and "The American Flag," long a popular recitation.

Wikipedia: Joseph Rodman Drake
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Joseph Rodman Drake

Joseph Rodman Drake (August 17, 1795 – September 21, 1820) was an early American poet.

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Biography

Born in New York City, he was orphaned when young and entered a mercantile house. While still a child, he showed a talent for writing poems. He was educated at Columbia. In 1813 he began studying in a physician's office. In 1816 he began to practice medicine and in the same year was married to Sarah, daughter of Henry Eckford, the naval architect.

In 1819, together with his friend and fellow poet Fitz-Greene Halleck, he wrote a series of satirical verses for the New York Evening Post, which were published under the penname "The Croakers." Drake died a year later, of consumption, at the age of twenty-five.

As a writer, Drake is considered part of the "Knickerbocker group", a group which also included Halleck as well as Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James Kirke Paulding, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Robert Charles Sands, Lydia M. Child, and Nathaniel Parker Willis.[1] A collection, The Culprit Fay and Other Poems, was published posthumously by his daughter in 1835. His best-known poems are the long title-poem of that collection, and the patriotic "The American Flag" which was set as a cantata for two soloists, choir and orchestra by the Czech composer Antonin Dvořák in 1892-93, as his Op. 102.[2]

Fitz-Greene Halleck's poem "Green be the turf above thee" was written as a memorial to Drake. Joseph Rodman Drake Park in Hunts Point, Bronx was named for him in 1915.[3]

Critical response

In the early part of the 19th Century both Drake and his friend Halleck were widely hailed by Americans as among the leading literary personalities and talents produced by this country. That they had been leading lights in the New York area was true, but the glimmer for both could not really hold. It was finally diminished by Edgar Allan Poe when he wrote a serious study of the two poets called The Halleck - Rodman Review. Looking at The Culprit Fay by Drake, Poe showed that the imagery many marvelled at was quite second-rate and ordinary. In fact, he briefly invented new lines to show how easily it could be done. As for Halleck, Poe looked over Alnwick Castle and showed how a bit tighter use of structuring the lines would have immeasurably improved the entire work. The reputations of both Drake and Halleck never recovered.

References

  1. ^ Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 30. ISBN 086576008X
  2. ^ http://www.oocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/4586/aldfr.html
  3. ^ New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

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Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Joseph Rodman Drake".  Read more