Sidney Lanier as a man of genius

Abstract

Introduction: Critics in estimating the worth of authors are apt to overlook men who do not take part in some great movement of the day, as did Whittier our great Abolitionist poet. This has especially been true of our Southern poet Sidney Lanier. The fact of his having taken arms with the South during the Civil War may have had something to do with his not being recognized as one of the great poets during his life. But where there is true genius it will, sooner or later, be recognized for all it is worth. People are just commencing to realize Lanier’s importance in the literary world. The man and poet who wished “that life and song might each express the other’s all” was born at Macon, Georgia in a house yet standing on the brow of a hill composing a part of the inland town.