Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman was an American poet, remembered mostly for his sonnet series. Apart from the 1860 publication of his book Poems, which included approximately twofifths of his lifetime sonnet output and other poetic works in a variety of forms, the remainder of his poetry was published posthumously in the 20th century. Attempts by several 20th century scholars and critics to spark wider interest in his life and works have met with some success and Tuckerman is now included in several important anthologies of American poetry. Though his works appear in 19th century anthologies of American poetry and sonnets, this reclusive contemporary of Emily Dickinson, sometime correspondent of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and acquaintance of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, remains in relative obscurity.

Tuckerman was born into a prosperous and distinguished Boston family on February 4, 1821. According to a family genealogy, privately printed by a relative, Bayard Tuckerman, in 1917, Frederick entered Harvard University in 1841, but did not remain long, due to an eye problem. Bayard goes on to write Later, he entered the law school, graduating in 1842, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar. Finding the practice of law distasteful, he abandoned it and devoted himself to the pursuit of his favorite studiesliterature, botany and astronomy. His love of nature led him in early manhood to settle in the country. He had a fine telescope, and for several years kept a journal of astronomical and meteorological phenomena, from time to time publishing his observations. As a botanist he was recognized as an authority on the Flora of Franklin County and the adjacent region. According to N. Scott Momaday, In 1847, he removed to Greenfield, in western Massachusetts. The life he began at Greenfield was a

Source: Wikipedia