The Vault at Pfaff's

An Archive of Art and Literature by the Bohemians of Antebellum New York

Three New York Poets

"Three New York Poets." Scribner's Monthly, July 1, 1881, 469-472.
Electronic Source Available
Type
magazine
Genre
literary criticism
Abstract

Reviews collections of poetry by William Winter, George Arnold, and Fitz-James O'Brien, all recently published at the time this article was written. The O'Brien and Arnold anthologies were both edited by Winter. The reviewer describes the authors' works as well as the authors themselves and their involvement with New York Bohemianism, "a cisatlantic imitation of Baranger's or Mürger's Bohème; and not a bad one, so far as the Bohemianism went. They cultivated, some of them, the same eccentricities of dress and manner; they lived on the same principle, namely, that life in a garret is pleasant at twenty; and they clean out-drank the Frenchmen, having a strain of Berserker blood in their Anglo-Saxon constitutions" (469).

People Mentioned in this Work
Aldrich, Thomas [pages: 470]

Aldrich's poetry is compared to Winter's: "Mr. Aldrich's dainty love-songs caught the popular ear before the sadder sighing of Mr. Winter's muse."

Butler, William [pages: 471]

Butler's poetry is compared to O'Brien's: "'The Sewing Bird' and 'The Finishing School' are, perhaps, echoes of William Allen Butler's now almost forgotten success, 'Nothing to Wear' or some earlier prototype" (471).

Clapp, Henry [pages: 469]

The writer refers to the "king of Bohemia" without directly referencing Clapp by name. The writer specifically mentions Clapp's tragic end, stating, "[t]he old king of Bohemia died a pauper, a half-dozen years ago, and some of his old subjects passed the hat around among the trim young journalists, who had never known him, and collected enough to put a head-stone over his grave" (469).

O'Brien, Fitz-James [pages: 471]

Butler's poetry is comp.ared to O'Brien's

Poe, Edgar [pages: 471]

The reviewer compares O'Brien to Poe, stating that, "[w]hen we read the opening pages of 'The Lost Room,' we say: Poe never had a weirder dream, nor told one in language so rich and graceful" (471).

Stedman, Edmund [pages: 470]

Stedman's poetry is compared to Arnold's: "Mr. Stedman's 'Ballad of Larger Beer' was a better piece of work than Arnold's 'Beer'" (470).