Edward Tyrrel Channing (December 12, 1790 – February 8, 1856) was an American

rhetorician Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

. He was a professor at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, brother to

William Ellery Channing 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. Channi ...

and Walter Channing, and cousin of

Richard Henry Dana Sr. Richard Henry Dana Sr. (November 15, 1787 – February 2, 1879) was an American poet, critic and lawyer. His son, Richard Henry Dana Jr., also became a lawyer and author. Biography Richard Henry Dana was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Novem ...

Biography

Channing was born in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...

, the son of William and Lucy (Ellery) Channing. In 1807 he graduated from

,Appletons' states "like his brother Walter, became involved in the college rebellion of 1807, and was not graduated with his class, but afterward received his degree." See and began the practice of law in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, but devoted his attention chiefly to literature. From 1818–1819 he was the second editor of the ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived a ...

'' after

William Tudor (1779-1830) William Tudor (March 28, 1750 – July 8, 1819) was a wealthy lawyer and leading citizen of Boston, Massachusetts. His eldest son William Tudor (1779–1830) became a leading literary figure in Boston. Another son, Frederic Tudor, founded t ...

, and remained a regular contributor through much of his life. From 1819–1850 he taught at Harvard as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, the position held by

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States S ...

from 1806–1809. (

Joseph McKean Joseph Borden McKean (July 28, 1764 – September 3, 1826) was a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer and judge. He served as state Pennsylvania Attorney General when appointed by his father, Governor Thomas McKean, and like his father, also serv ...

had served as the second Boylston Professor.) His students included the noted authors and speakers

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823May 9, 1911) was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with ...

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (; August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among the fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most fa ...

James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell (; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that ri ...

Charles Eliot Norton Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries c ...

Wendell Phillips Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney. According to George Lewis Ruffin, a Black attorney, Phillips was seen by many Blacks as "the one whi ...

, and

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...

. Channing was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1823. Channing married Henrietta Ellery in 1826 and died in Cambridge. A memorial volume of his lectures was published in 1856 with memoir by

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir ''Two Years Before the Mast''. ...

Selected works

* ''An oration, delivered July 4, 1817, at the request of the selectmen of the town of Boston, in commemoration of the anniversary of American independence'', Boston: printed by Joseph T. Buckingham, Congress-Street, 1817. * ''Lives of William Pinkney, William Ellery, and Cotton Mather'', Boston : Hilliard, Gray; London : R. J. Kennett, 1836. * ''Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory'', Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1856. * "Life of William Ellery," in ''The Library of American Biography'', edited by Jared Sparks, vol. 6 New York: Harper & Brothers, 1848. 89–159. *''Lectures Read to the Seniors in Harvard College'', Boston, 1856. Facsimile ed., introd. Charlotte Downey, 1997, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, .

Notes

References

* Dorothy C. Broaddus, ''Genteel Rhetoric: Writing High Culture in Nineteenth-Century Boston'', University of South Carolina Press, 1999.. 1790 births 1856 deaths American rhetoricians Harvard College alumni Harvard University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences People from Newport, Rhode Island {{US-academic-bio-stub