William ellery channing biography sample

American Unitarian clergyman (1780–1842)

This article is about the Unitarian theologian. For the Transcendentalist poet, see William Ellery Channing (poet).

William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780 – October 2, 1842) was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton (1786–1853), one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. Channing was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker in the liberal theology of the day. His religion and thought were among the chief influences on the New EnglandTranscendentalists although he never countenanced their views, which he saw as extreme. His espousal of the developing philosophy and theology of Unitarianism was displayed especially in his "Baltimore Sermon" of May 5, 1819, given at the ordination of the theologian and educator Jared Sparks (1789–1866) as the first minister of the newly organized First Independent Church of Baltimore.

Life and work

Early life

Channing, the son of William Channing and Lucy Ellery, was born April 7, 1780, in Newport, Rhode Island. He was a grandson of William Ellery (1727–1820), a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, Deputy Governor of Rhode Island, Chief Justice, and influential citizen. As a child, he was cared for by the formerly enslaved woman Duchess Quamino, who later influenced his views on abolitionism. He became a New Englandliberal, rejecting the Calvinist doctrines of total depravity and divine election.

Channing enrolled at Harvard College at a troubled time, particularly because of the recent French Revolution. He later wrote of these years:

College was never in a worse state than when I entered it. Society was passing through a most critical stage. The French Revolution had diseased the imagination and unsettled the understanding of men everywhere. The old foundatio

Biography

Ellery Channing was not the most illustrious of the transcendentalists except perhaps for his eccentricity. Indeed, he himself said in middle age: "Dull I came upon the planet, untalented, the one talent still in that tremendous napkin, out of which I have never been able to unwrap it and where it is still like to be for all I can discern thro its folds." (McGill, p. vii)

His main talent--and it was considerable--seems to have been as a friend, to Emerson, Alcott, and Hawthorne, and especially with Thoreau, his fellow saunterer and Concord "character." In a group which cherish friendship and conversation, his wit and insights were cherished.

His talk dazzled; his perceptions encouraged; his poetry moved them; in specific ways, he made daily life intellectual and esthetic for his friends. Repeatedly, he did for them what he could not do for himself--he called forth genuine poetry. the movement of a ripple, the greenness of a fern, the notes of a wood bird passed through the alembic of his conversation. Even the obvious disparity between imaginative talk and mediocre verse showed his friends that the life being lived was more genuine than the abstractions of mere literary performance. (Hudspeth, p. 150)

Channing was born in 1817 to a Professor of Obstetrics at Harvard and like his uncle, Dr. Channing, was named for his great-grandfather, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, one of many distinguished forbearers. However, his world was disrupted at five years when his affectionate mother died and he was sent to live with cousins; his lifelong loneliness, depression, and moodiness may have its source here. His college career was noted primarily for his failure to adapt and the young rebel did not survive his freshman year. He studied law briefly, but found the reading of poetry at the Boston Athenaeum more exciting. In 1835 he began publishing some rather erratic essays and

American poet

This article is about the Transcendentalist poet. For the Unitarian theologian, see William Ellery Channing.

William Ellery Channing II (November 29, 1817 – December 23, 1901) was an American Transcendentalist poet, nephew and namesake of the Unitarian preacher Dr. William Ellery Channing. His uncle was usually known as "Dr. Channing", while the nephew was commonly called "Ellery Channing", in print. The younger Ellery Channing was thought brilliant but undisciplined by many of his contemporaries. Amos Bronson Alcott famously said of him in 1871, "Whim, thy name is Channing." Nevertheless, the Transcendentalists thought his poetry among the best of their group's literary products.

Life and work

Channing was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dr. Walter Channing, a physician and Harvard Medical School professor. He attended Boston Latin School and later the Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, then entered Harvard University in 1834, but did not graduate. In 1839 he lived for some months in Woodstock, Illinois, in a log hut that he built; in 1840, he moved to Cincinnati. In the fall of 1842, he married Ellen Fuller, the younger sister of transcendentalist Margaret Fuller and they began their married life in Concord, Massachusetts, where they lived a half-mile north of The Old Manse as Nathaniel Hawthorne's neighbor.

Channing wrote to Thoreau in a letter: "I see nothing for you on this earth but that field which I once christened 'Briars'; go out upon that, build yourself a hut, and there begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive. I see no alternative, no other hope for you." Thoreau adopted this advice, and shortly after built his famous dwelling beside Walden Pond. Some speculation identifies Channing as the "Poet" of Thoreau's Walden; the two were frequent walking companions.

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