Sidney Lanier
Overview
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
ian and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
.
Sidney Lanier was born February 3, 1842, in Macon
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, to parents Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson; he was mostly of English ancestry. His distant French Huguenot ancestors immigrated to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the 16th century fleeing religious persecution. He began playing the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
at an early age, and his love of that musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
continued throughout his life.
Unanswered Questions
Discussions
Quotations
And yet shall Love himself be heard,Though long deferred, though long deferred:O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred:Music is Love in search of a word.
"The Symphony" (1875).
Virginal shy lights,Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnadesOf the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,Of the heavenly woods and glades,That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach withinThe wide sea-marshes of Glynn.
"The Marshes of Glynn|The Marshes of Glynn" (1878).
The sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West.
"The Marshes of Glynn" (1878).
Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and freeYe publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily wonGod out of knowledge and good out of infinite painAnd sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
"The Marshes of Glynn" (1878).
The incalculable Up-and-Down of Time.
"Clover", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Encyclopedia
Sidney Lanier was an American
music
ian and poet
.
, Georgia
, to parents Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson; he was mostly of English ancestry. His distant French Huguenot ancestors immigrated to England
in the 16th century fleeing religious persecution. He began playing the flute
at an early age, and his love of that musical instrument
continued throughout his life. He attended Oglethorpe University
near Milledgeville
, Georgia, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon
fraternity. He graduated first in his class shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War
.
He fought in the Civil War, primarily in the tidewater region of Virginia
, where he served in the Confederate
signal corps. Later, he and his brother Clifford served as pilots aboard English blockade runner
s. On one of these voyages, his ship was boarded. Refusing to take the advice of the British officers on board to don one of their uniforms and pretend to be one of them, he was captured. He was incarcerated in a military prison at Point Lookout in Maryland
, where he contracted tuberculosis
(generally known as "consumption" at the time). He suffered greatly from this disease, then incurable and usually fatal, for the rest of his life.
Shortly after the war, he taught school briefly, then moved to Montgomery, Alabama
, where he worked as a desk clerk at The Exchange Hotel and also performed as a musician. He was the regular organist at The First Presbyterian Church in nearby Prattville. He wrote his only novel, Tiger Lilies (1867) while in Alabama. In 1867, he moved to Prattville
, at that time a small town just north of Montgomery, where he taught and served as principal of a school.
He married Mary Day of Macon in 1876 and moved back to his hometown, where he began working in his father's law office.
After taking and passing the Georgia bar, Lanier practiced as a lawyer for several years. During this period he wrote a number of poems, using the "cracker" and "negro
" dialects of his day, about poor white and black farmers in the Reconstruction South. He traveled extensively through southern and eastern portions of the United States in search of a cure for his tuberculosis
.
While on one such journey in Texas
, he rediscovered his native and untutored talent for the flute
and decided to travel to the northeast in hopes of finding employment as a musician in an orchestra
. Unable to find work in New York
, Philadelphia, or Boston, he signed on to play flute for the Peabody Orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland, shortly after its organization. He taught himself musical notation
and quickly rose to the position of first flautist. He was famous in his day for his performances of a personal composition for the flute called "Black Birds," which mimics the song of that species.
In an effort to support Mary and their three sons, he also wrote poetry
for magazines. His most famous poems were "Corn" (1875), "The Symphony" (1875), "Centennial Meditation" (1876), "The Song of the Chattahoochee" (1877), "The Marshes of Glynn
" (1878), and "Sunrise" (1881). The latter two poems are generally considered his greatest works. They are part of an unfinished set of lyrical nature poems known as the "Hymns of the Marshes", which describe the vast, open salt marshes of Glynn County
on the coast of Georgia. There is a historical marker in Brunswick
commemorating the writing of "The Marshes of Glynn
". The largest bridge in Georgia (as of 2005), a short distance from the marker, is named The Sidney Lanier Bridge.
in Baltimore, specializing in the works of the English novelists, Shakespeare
, the Elizabethan
sonneteers, Chaucer
, and the Anglo-Saxon poets. He published a series of lectures entitled The English Novel (published posthumously in 1883) and a book entitled The Science of English Verse (1880), in which he developed a novel theory exploring the connections between musical notation and meter in poetry.
Lanier finally succumbed to complications caused by his tuberculosis on September 7, 1881, while convalescing with his family near Lynn, North Carolina. He was 39. Lanier is buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.
s, which was strongly influenced by the works of his beloved Anglo-Saxon poets. He wrote several of his greatest poems in this meter, including "Revenge of Hamish" (1878), "The Marshes of Glynn" and "Sunrise". In Lanier's hands, the logaoedic dactylic meter led to a free-form, almost prose-like style of poetry that was greatly admired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
, Bayard Taylor
, Charlotte Cushman, and other leading poets and critics of the day. A similar poetical meter was independently developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins
at about the same time (there is no evidence that they knew each other or that either of them had read any of the other's works).
Lanier also published essays on other literary and musical topics and a notable series of four redactions of literary works about knightly combat and chivalry in modernized language more appealing to the boys of his day:
He also wrote two travelogues that were widely read at the time, entitled Florida
: Its Scenery, Climate and History (1875) and Sketches of India
(1876) (although he never visited India).
Baltimore also honored him with a large and elaborate bronze and granite sculptural monument, created by Hans K. Schuler and located on the campus of the Johns Hopkins University
.
In addition to the monument at Johns Hopkins, Lanier was also later memorialized on the campus of Duke University
in Durham, North Carolina
. Upon the construction of the iconic Duke Chapel
between 1930 and 1935 on the university's West Campus, a statue of Lanier was included alongside two fellow prominent Southerners, Thomas Jefferson
and Robert E. Lee
. This statue, which appears to show a Lanier older than the 39 years he actually lived, is situated on the right side of the portico leading into the Chapel narthex. It is prominently featured on the cover of the 2010 autobiographical memoir Hannah's Child, by Stanley Hauerwas
, a Methodist theologian teaching at Duke Divinity School
.
Lanier's poem "The Marshes of Glynn" is the inspiration for a cantata
by the same name that was created by the modern English composer Andrew Downes
to celebrate the Royal Opening of the Adrian Boult Hall
in Birmingham
, England
, in 1986.
Several places have been named for Sidney Lanier (in order of type, then state, then city):
Piers Anthony
used Lanier, his life, and his poetry in his science-fiction novel Macroscope
(1969). He quotes from "The Marshes of Glynn" and other references appear throughout the novel.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
ian and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
.
Biography
Sidney Lanier was born February 3, 1842, in MaconMacon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, to parents Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary Jane Anderson; he was mostly of English ancestry. His distant French Huguenot ancestors immigrated to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the 16th century fleeing religious persecution. He began playing the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
at an early age, and his love of that musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
continued throughout his life. He attended Oglethorpe University
Oglethorpe University
Oglethorpe University is a private liberal arts college in Brookhaven, Georgia, an inner suburb of Atlanta. It was chartered in 1835 and named after James Edward Oglethorpe, the state's founder.-History:...
near Milledgeville
Milledgeville, Georgia
Milledgeville is a city in and the county seat of Baldwin County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is northeast of Macon, located just before Eatonton on the way to Athens along U.S. Highway 441, and it is located on the Oconee River. The relatively rapid current of the Oconee here made this an...
, Georgia, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Alpha Epsilon is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only one founded in the Antebellum South...
fraternity. He graduated first in his class shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
He fought in the Civil War, primarily in the tidewater region of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, where he served in the Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
signal corps. Later, he and his brother Clifford served as pilots aboard English blockade runner
Blockade runner
A blockade runner is usually a lighter weight ship used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait, as opposed to confronting the blockaders to break the blockade. Very often blockade running is done in order to transport cargo, for example to bring food or arms to a blockaded city...
s. On one of these voyages, his ship was boarded. Refusing to take the advice of the British officers on board to don one of their uniforms and pretend to be one of them, he was captured. He was incarcerated in a military prison at Point Lookout in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, where he contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
(generally known as "consumption" at the time). He suffered greatly from this disease, then incurable and usually fatal, for the rest of his life.
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
, where he worked as a desk clerk at The Exchange Hotel and also performed as a musician. He was the regular organist at The First Presbyterian Church in nearby Prattville. He wrote his only novel, Tiger Lilies (1867) while in Alabama. In 1867, he moved to Prattville
Prattville, Alabama
Prattville is a city in Autauga and Elmore counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 33,960. Nicknamed "The Fountain City" due to the many artesian wells in the area, Prattville is part of the Montgomery metropolitan statistical area and serves as...
, at that time a small town just north of Montgomery, where he taught and served as principal of a school.
He married Mary Day of Macon in 1876 and moved back to his hometown, where he began working in his father's law office.
After taking and passing the Georgia bar, Lanier practiced as a lawyer for several years. During this period he wrote a number of poems, using the "cracker" and "negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
" dialects of his day, about poor white and black farmers in the Reconstruction South. He traveled extensively through southern and eastern portions of the United States in search of a cure for his tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
While on one such journey in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, he rediscovered his native and untutored talent for the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
and decided to travel to the northeast in hopes of finding employment as a musician in an orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
. Unable to find work in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Philadelphia, or Boston, he signed on to play flute for the Peabody Orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland, shortly after its organization. He taught himself musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
and quickly rose to the position of first flautist. He was famous in his day for his performances of a personal composition for the flute called "Black Birds," which mimics the song of that species.
In an effort to support Mary and their three sons, he also wrote poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
for magazines. His most famous poems were "Corn" (1875), "The Symphony" (1875), "Centennial Meditation" (1876), "The Song of the Chattahoochee" (1877), "The Marshes of Glynn
The Marshes of Glynn
The Marshes of Glynn is one of Sidney Lanier's poems featured in "Hymns of the Marshes," an unfinished set of lyrical nature poems that describe the open salt marshes of Glynn County in coastal Georgia. The poem describes a marsh in detail, while evoking senses of patience and common decency.In...
" (1878), and "Sunrise" (1881). The latter two poems are generally considered his greatest works. They are part of an unfinished set of lyrical nature poems known as the "Hymns of the Marshes", which describe the vast, open salt marshes of Glynn County
Glynn County, Georgia
Glynn County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 67,568. The 2008 Census Estimate showed a population of 75,884...
on the coast of Georgia. There is a historical marker in Brunswick
Brunswick, Georgia
Brunswick is the major urban and economic center in southeastern Georgia in the United States. The municipality is located on a harbor near the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 30 miles north of Florida and 70 miles south of South Carolina. Brunswick is bordered on the east by the Atlantic...
commemorating the writing of "The Marshes of Glynn
The Marshes of Glynn
The Marshes of Glynn is one of Sidney Lanier's poems featured in "Hymns of the Marshes," an unfinished set of lyrical nature poems that describe the open salt marshes of Glynn County in coastal Georgia. The poem describes a marsh in detail, while evoking senses of patience and common decency.In...
". The largest bridge in Georgia (as of 2005), a short distance from the marker, is named The Sidney Lanier Bridge.
Later life
Late in his life, he became a student, lecturer, and, finally, a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in Baltimore, specializing in the works of the English novelists, Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, the Elizabethan
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
sonneteers, Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
, and the Anglo-Saxon poets. He published a series of lectures entitled The English Novel (published posthumously in 1883) and a book entitled The Science of English Verse (1880), in which he developed a novel theory exploring the connections between musical notation and meter in poetry.
Writing style and literary theory
With his theory connecting musical notation with poetic meter, he developed a unique style of poetry written in logaoedic dactylMeter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
s, which was strongly influenced by the works of his beloved Anglo-Saxon poets. He wrote several of his greatest poems in this meter, including "Revenge of Hamish" (1878), "The Marshes of Glynn" and "Sunrise". In Lanier's hands, the logaoedic dactylic meter led to a free-form, almost prose-like style of poetry that was greatly admired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
, Bayard Taylor
Bayard Taylor
Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic, translator, and travel author.-Life and work:...
, Charlotte Cushman, and other leading poets and critics of the day. A similar poetical meter was independently developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...
at about the same time (there is no evidence that they knew each other or that either of them had read any of the other's works).
Lanier also published essays on other literary and musical topics and a notable series of four redactions of literary works about knightly combat and chivalry in modernized language more appealing to the boys of his day:
- The Boy's Froissart (1878), a retelling of Jean FroissartJean FroissartJean Froissart , often referred to in English as John Froissart, was one of the most important chroniclers of medieval France. For centuries, Froissart's Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric revival of the 14th century Kingdom of England and France...
's Froissart's ChroniclesFroissart's ChroniclesFroissart's Chronicles was written in French by Jean Froissart. It covers the years 1322 until 1400 and describes the conditions that created the Hundred Years' War and the first fifty years of the conflict...
, which tell of adventure, battle and custom in medieval England, France and Spain - The Boy's King Arthur (1880), based on Sir Thomas Malory's compilation of the legends of King ArthurKing ArthurKing Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
and the Knights of the Round Table - The Boy's Mabinogion (1881), based on the early WelshWalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
legends of King Arthur, as retold in the Red Book of HergestRed Book of HergestThe Red Book of Hergest is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important medieval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preserves a collection of Welsh prose and poetry, notably the tales of the Mabinogion, Gogynfeirdd poetry...
. - The Boy's Percy (published posthumously in 1882), consisting of old ballads of war, adventure and love based on Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English PoetryReliques of Ancient English PoetryThe Reliques of Ancient English Poetry is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Thomas Percy and published in 1765.-Sources:...
.
He also wrote two travelogues that were widely read at the time, entitled Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
: Its Scenery, Climate and History (1875) and Sketches of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(1876) (although he never visited India).
Legacy and honors
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
.
In addition to the monument at Johns Hopkins, Lanier was also later memorialized on the campus of Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
in Durham, North Carolina
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...
. Upon the construction of the iconic Duke Chapel
Duke Chapel
Duke University Chapel is a chapel located at the center of the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is an ecumenical Christian chapel and the center of religion at Duke, and has connections to the United Methodist Church...
between 1930 and 1935 on the university's West Campus, a statue of Lanier was included alongside two fellow prominent Southerners, Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
and Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
. This statue, which appears to show a Lanier older than the 39 years he actually lived, is situated on the right side of the portico leading into the Chapel narthex. It is prominently featured on the cover of the 2010 autobiographical memoir Hannah's Child, by Stanley Hauerwas
Stanley Hauerwas
Stanley Hauerwas is a Christian theologian and ethicist. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and is currently the Gilbert T...
, a Methodist theologian teaching at Duke Divinity School
Duke Divinity School
The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina is one of thirteen seminaries founded and supported by the United Methodist Church. It has 39 full time and 18 part time faculty and over 500 full time students. The current dean of The Divinity School is Richard B. Hays, who replaced...
.
Lanier's poem "The Marshes of Glynn" is the inspiration for a cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
by the same name that was created by the modern English composer Andrew Downes
Andrew Downes (composer)
Andrew Downes is a British classical composer.Downes was born in Handsworth, Birmingham. In 1969, he won a choral scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA degree specializing in composition, and in 1974 went on to study with Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music...
to celebrate the Royal Opening of the Adrian Boult Hall
Adrian Boult Hall
The Adrian Boult Hall is the main concert hall of the Birmingham Conservatoire in central Birmingham, England. It is named after the conductor Adrian Boult....
in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, in 1986.
Several places have been named for Sidney Lanier (in order of type, then state, then city):
Geographical units
- Lanier Heights Neighborhood, Washington, D.C.
- Lanier County, GeorgiaLanier County, GeorgiaLanier County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is part of the Valdosta, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2009, the population was 8,423. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 7,847. The county seat is Lakeland. Lakeland is Lanier County's only incorporated...
- Indirectly, , which was named for the county.
Bodies of water
- Lake LanierLake LanierLake Lanier is a reservoir in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. It was created by the completion of Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River in 1956, and is also fed by the waters of the Chestatee River. The lake encompasses of water, and of shoreline at normal level, a "full...
, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers northeast of Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in... - Lake Lanier in Tryon, North CarolinaTryon, North CarolinaTryon is a town in Polk County, North Carolina, United States. According to the 2000 Census the population of Tryon was 1,760. The area is a center for equestrian activity and fine arts....
Schools
- Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery, AlabamaMontgomery, AlabamaMontgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
- Sidney Lanier School in Gainesville, FloridaGainesville, FloridaGainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...
- Lanier UniversityLanier UniversityLanier University, named after poet Sidney Lanier, was from a short-lived university in today's Morningside-Lenox Park neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia....
short-lived university, first Baptist, then owned by the Ku Klux KlanKu Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
, in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in... - The Sidney Lanier Building (previously Sidney Lanier Elementary School) on the campus of Glynn AcademyGlynn AcademyGlynn Academy is an American public high school in Brunswick, Georgia, USA,, enrolling 1,755 students in grades 9–12. Along with Brunswick High School, it is one of two high schools in the Glynn County School System...
, in Brunswick, Georgia - Lanier Middle School in Buford, GeorgiaLanier Middle School (Buford, Georgia)Lanier Middle School is a public school in Buford, Georgia, United States, grades 6-8.The Georgia state Department of Education awarded the school a "2006 Platinum Award for Greatest Gain in Percentage of Students Meeting and Exceeding Standards" after the school improved its percentage of students...
- Lanier Elementary School in Gainesville, GeorgiaGainesville, Georgia-Severe Weather:Gainesville sits on the very fringe of Tornado Alley, a region of the United States where severe weather is common. Supercell thunderstorms can sweep through any time between March and November, but are concentrated most in the spring...
- Sidney Lanier BridgeSidney Lanier BridgeThe Sidney Lanier Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge that spans the Brunswick River in Brunswick, Georgia, carrying four lanes of U.S. Route 17. The current bridge was built as a replacement to the original lift bridge which was twice struck by ships. It is currently the longest spanning bridge in...
over the South Brunswick River in Brunswick, GeorgiaBrunswick, GeorgiaBrunswick is the major urban and economic center in southeastern Georgia in the United States. The municipality is located on a harbor near the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 30 miles north of Florida and 70 miles south of South Carolina. Brunswick is bordered on the east by the Atlantic... - Sidney Lanier Elementary School in Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa, OklahomaTulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
- Sidney Lanier High School in Austin, Texas
- Sidney Lanier Expressive Arts Vanguard Elementary School in Dallas, TexasDallas, TexasDallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
- Lanier Middle School in Houston, TexasLanier Middle School (Houston)Sidney Lanier Middle School is an internal charter middle school located at 2600 Woodhead Street in Houston, Texas, United States, with a ZIP code of 77098...
- Lanier High School in San Antonio, TexasLanier High School (San Antonio, Texas)Sidney Lanier High School is a local high school of the San Antonio Independent School District in the westside of San Antonio, Texas. Serving the San Antonio Independent School District, Lanier boasts an enrollment of approximately 1400 students.-History:...
- Lanier Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia
- Sidney Lanier Elementary School in Tampa, Florida
Other
- Sidney Lanier Cottage http://www.historicmacon.org/sidney-lanier-cottage/visit, the birthplace of Lanier, in Macon, Georgia
Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth.Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best...
used Lanier, his life, and his poetry in his science-fiction novel Macroscope
Macroscope
Macroscope is a novel by science fiction and fantasy writer Piers Anthony. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1970.Macroscope was first published in 1969 and in some respects reflects the idealistic values of that time...
(1969). He quotes from "The Marshes of Glynn" and other references appear throughout the novel.
External links
- Works by Sidney Lanier at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) (plain text and HTML) - A Biography Of Sidney Lanier at Project Gutenberg
- Finding aid for the Sidney Lanier papers at the Johns Hopkins University
- Sidney Lanier in The New Georgia Encyclopedia
- Sidney Lanier Cottage House Museum in Macon, GeorgiaMacon, GeorgiaMacon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...