SOURCE: "The Divided Voice," in his William Cullen Bryant, updated edition, Twayne Publishers, 1989, pp. 106-31.

In the excerpt below, McLean focuses on Bryant's poetic theory and poetic technique, observing a distinct division between the poet's artistic intention and his poetic achievement.

If Bryant's vacillation between epideictic and contemplative verse in his poems of progress was, on one level, a re-enactment of the age-old dilemma of the personal poet who feels compelled to tithe his talent to the social good, on a more profound level this indecision was too symptomatic of the fundamental weakness of his poetry. Bryant was seldom able to speak with the firm, clear, original voice of his own genius. Though he sensed early and rightly that his was the way of the poet, he never truly understood the terms of his vocation. Though his voice in a few great poems rises to uniqueness, the grounds...