Fitz-Greene Halleck

Fitz-Greene Halleck , 1790-1867, American poet, b. Guilford, Conn. He was joint author, with Joseph Rodman Drake, of the humorous lampoons "Croaker Papers," most of which were printed in the New York Evening Post in 1819. In the same year he published his long satire, Fanny (1819), in the style of Byron's Beppo. His poem "Marco Bozzaris," popular as a recitation, and his "Green Be the Turf above Thee," an elegy on the death of Drake, were the best known of Halleck's graceful verses. For many years he was personal secretary to John Jacob Astor.

Halleck, Fitz‐Greene (1790–1867), born in Connecticut, was a leading member of the Knickerbocker Group and co‐author with J. R. Drake of the “Croaker Papers” (1819), which catapulted him to fame. In the same year he published his long poem Fanny, a satire of New York society, imitating Byron's Beppo and Don Juan, which was so popular that he added 50 stanzas to it two years later. He visited Europe (1822) and there wrote the poem Alnwick Castle, in which he attempted to combine the sentimental romance of Scott with Byron's sophisticated satire. Three years later he published Marco Bozzaris, a stirring poem about the heroic fighter against the Turks in the Greek struggle for freedom, which again exhibits his debt to Byron. After the publication of Alnwick Castle, with Other Poems (1827), Halleck did little writing, but his collected Works appeared in 1847. Among his best‐known short poems are Connecticut, Burns, The Field of the Grounded Arms, Red Jacket, and On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.