Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (February 4, 1821 – May 9, 1873) was an American poet, remembered mostly for his sonnet series. Apart from the 1860 publication of his book Poems, which included approximately two-fifths 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. Early life Frederick Goddard Tuckerman was born on February 4, 1821, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Edward Francis Tuckerman (1775–1843) and Sophia May (1784–1870), a prosperous and distinguished Boston family. His siblings included: Hannah Parkman Tuckerman (1805–1859), Edward Tuckerman (1817–1886), the botanist, Samuel Parkman Tuckerman (1819–1890), the composer, and Sophie Mary Eckley (1823–1874). His first cousin was Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871), an American writer, essayist and critic. He entered Harvard University in 1841, but did not remain long, due to an eye problem, as recalled in a family genealogy, privately printed in 1917 by a relative, Bayard Tuckerman. After Harvard, he entered the law school, graduating in 1842, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar, reading with Edward D. Sohier (1810–1888). He later abandoned the practice of law, saying that it was distasteful. He then devoted himself to the pursuit of his favorite studies, literature, botany and astronomy. In 1847, he moved to Greenfield, in western Massachusetts due to his love of nature and began living a life of relative seclusion and retirement, which was considered strange one for a man in his middle twenties.