Samuel Low
Samuel Low was a poet and dramatist born on December 12, 1765, in New York City, into a mercantile family. Despite his early passion for literature, he primarily worked as a bookkeeper and clerk to support himself, including a role at the U.S. Treasury and later at the Bank of New York. His literary career began with the publication of his first poem, "Winter Display'd," in 1784, which he started writing at age sixteen. Low's themes often revolved around the expansion of the young United States and the national discourse of his time. He authored one play, "The Politician Out-Witted," which reflects the political tensions surrounding the ratification of the Constitution through the story of two star-crossed lovers from opposing political families. After the death of his first wife, he remarried and had additional children while continuing to write. His later work culminated in the two-volume collection "Poems by Samuel Low," which included a lengthy ode to George Washington and various poetic forms, but it did not garner critical acclaim. Samuel Low's contributions as a writer highlight the intertwining of personal and national narratives in early American literature.
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Samuel Low
Playwright
- Born: December 12, 1765
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: Nineteenth century
Biography
Poet and dramatist Samuel Low was born in December 12, 1765, in New York City to a reasonably well-to-do mercantile family. Like many poets and writers of his day, Low had to work at other professions to support himself as a writer; although interested in literature from a young age, he worked for most of his life as a bookkeeper and clerk. His first job, for the U.S. Treasury, lasted until 1794, followed by an eight-year stint as a bookkeeper for the Bank of New York.
Never a prolific writer, Low took as his themes the expansion and growth of the young United States. His first book, Winter Display’d, a Poem: Describing the Season in All of Its Stages and Vicissitudes . . . , was published in 1784. The forty-page work of verse was based on Scottish poet James Thomson’s poem on the majesty of nature, The Seasons, published in 1730. Low had started writing the poem when he was sixteen years old. Although the initially published version of Winter Display’d, a Poem lacked the polish of his later work, he would eventually revise it and include it in his collection of poetry, Poems by Samuel Low (1800).
In 1785, he married Margaret Kip, who would eventually bear him four children. Within a few years, spurred on by the political debates surrounding the ratification of the Constitution, Low wrote his only play, The Politician Out- Witted: A Comedy, in Five Acts, Written in the Year 1788, published in 1789. The play is a melodrama about star-crossed lovers, one from a Federalist family and the other from an anti- Federalist family. Although the two lovers are eventually united, their fathers remain at odds with each other, reflecting in some sense the national tensions that existed at the time of constitutional ratification.
Low’s first wife died in 1795; by 1797, he had married Ann Cregier, who bore him a fifth child in 1798. Low went on to publish the two-volume collection Poems by Samuel Low. Much of the first volume is centered around a lengthy ode in honor of George Washington; this poem was recited on the stage by an actor in January, 1800. Many of the poems included in the two volumes demonstrate Low’s interest in public works and patriotic themes; the collection also contained Low’s sonnets, odes, and personal elegiac writings, as well as the much revised version of his Winter Display’d, a Poem The volumes were not well received by the critics and were the last of Low’s published works.