Poetry of the American Renaissance: A Diverse Anthology from the Romantic Period

by Paul Kane (Editor)

Overview

Newly available, here is the most comprehensive poetry collection from the half-century between 1820 and 1870.

“Among anthologies, there is nothing comparable to Paul Kane’s Poetry of the American Renaissance.”—Harold Bloom

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807616192
Publisher:	Braziller, George Inc.
Publication date:	05/18/2012
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	383
Sales rank:	975,269
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Paul Kane is a poet and critic who has published six collections of poems and a dozen other books. He has received a Fulbright award, Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships and grants from the Mellon Foundation. He is general editor of The Braziller Series of Australian Poets, and is currently Professor of English and Environmental Studies at Vassar College. He lives in Warwick, New York.

What People are Saying About This

William Rossi

By expanding and diversifying the canon usually associated with the American Renaissance, Paul Kane's remarkable collection offers new visions of nineteenth century American poetry, poetics, and literary culture.

Editorial Reviews

"By expanding and diversifying the canon usually associated with the American Renaissance, Paul Kane's remarkable collection offers new visions of nineteenth century American poetry, poetics, and literary culture."

William Rossi

The only thing new in this anthology of American poets from 1820 to 1870 is the inclusion of minor figures, long-since vanished footnotes to the greats. African Americans (Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, George Moses Horton, James Monroe Whitfield); Civil War veterans like Henry Howard Brownell; mystics like Jones Very; activists like Julia Ward Howe; Jewish writers like Emma Lazarus; and Native Americans like John Rollin Ridge demand legitimate attention, but figures like Maria Gowen Brooks (best known for her epic poem Zophiel); Christopher Pearse Cranch (referred to by Poe as "one of our finest poets"); Frances Sargent Osgood (thought to be "the most admired woman poet in America in the mid-1840s"); and Lydia Huntley Sigourney (known as "the sweet singer of Hartford") preserve curiosity only in a history of popular culture. This misnamed, unexciting anthology proves that greatness and popularity should never be confused. General readers will find most of what's here readily accessible in any old-time anthology. Not recommended.-Frank Allen, Northampton Community Coll., Tannersville, Pa.

Library Journal