Sidney Lanier

A life chronicle assembled largely from letters and reminiscences traces the subject's family background and boyhood, collegiate years, wartime service, and successive efforts to find a vocation that carried him from law into music, teaching, and literary work. It follows his emergence as a poet and critic, his university lectures and public addresses, and his attempt to merge musical sensibility with scholarly inquiry. The narrative emphasizes his ties to the Southern region, highlights recurring themes of nature and rhythm, records struggles with illness and poverty in his final years, and closes with a balanced appraisal of his poetic and critical achievement.