Educated at Oglethorpe University, Lanier graduated in 1860 at the top of his class. He took part in the Civil War where he served in the Confederate signal corps and as a ship's pilot on English vessels running the Northern blockades. He was captured and sent to Point Lookout military prison in Maryland and, while he was there, contracted tuberculosis. After the war he moved to Montgomery, Alabama where he worked as a clerk for two years and as a school principal in Prattville. In 1867, he published his only novel, Tiger-Lilies, drawing on his Civil War experiences and incarceration. He returned to Macon in 1868 and worked in his father's law practice, being admitted to the Georgia bar. He married in 1876 and began submitting poems to various periodicals. His tuberculosis made his life very difficult and he traveled to the Southwest in the hope of finding a cure. As a youth, Lanier had shown natural musical ability and was an accomplished flautist and during the late 1870's became the first flautist with the Peabody Orchestra in Baltimore. While in Baltimore, he studied literature and eventually secured a position as a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. In 1881, he traveled to North Carolina hoping that the climate might be beneficial, but he succumbed to tuberculosis in September that year. His musical talent was evident in his poetry, one poem of which, Symphony, is structured along musical lines. Besides his poetry, Lanier also wrote literary criticism. His works include Florida: Its Scenery, Climate and History (1875), Sketches of India (1876), Poems (1877), The Science of English Verse (1880), The English Novel and the Principle of Its Development (1883 Posthumous) and Shakespeare and His Forerunners (1902 Posthumous). |
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