American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1: Philip Freneau to Walt Whitman

In size and ambition, this may be the largest selection of poetry from our nation's first full century since Edmund Stedman's An American Anthology, 1787-1900, published more than 90 years ago. With its special sections of Native American poems, African American spirituals and hymns, folksongs, and popular or patriotic verses (e.g., "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Home, Sweet Home!" and Stephen Foster's lyrics), the present volume evokes an era when poetry was enjoyed more than studied, written out of the desire for self-expression rather than the need for tenure. Major poets like Dickinson and Whitman are amply represented, but the collection also allows readers to rediscover the graceful strength of Sarah Orne Jewett, Ella Wilcox's nearly modernist irony, the Goreyesque eccentricity of Ambrose Bierce, and president John Quincy Adams's way with ballad meter.