Unit 2: Continuity and Change in Poetic Form
Building on the socio-historical context and primary texts we read in the last unit, here we will read the works of a number of important and varied poets writing during this time. After the last unit, you may not be surprised to hear that authors of the American Renaissance explored older literary forms like poetry, the short story, and the novel, and developed new forms as they shaped and responded to the changing nature of American society. Following European Romanticism, many American poets redefined poetry less in terms of preconceived form than in terms of organic structure. Doing so led to some of the most important formal innovations of the time, spearheaded by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. At the same time, debates circulated around both form and content of poetry, as exemplified by Edgar Allan Poe's influential criticism. Read through this unit with an eye toward poetic form and its literary traits.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 9 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- differentiate between Poe and Emerson's concepts of beauty and their relationships to poetry and its forms;
- explain Poe and Emerson's different understandings of the origin and correct composition of poetry;
- summarize Poe's objections to didactic poetry by contextualizing him and his work in the time period;
- list some of the most popular political poets of this historical moment and identify their major works;
- describe and analyze Whitman's development of free verse and its relationship to his ideas about American democracy, nature, love, friendships, and the self; and
- consider Dickinson's poetic form and content in the context of the traditional understanding of gender in the nineteenth century.
2.1: Two Competing Poetics
2.1.1: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Read these important critical statements on poetry by Emerson along with a sampling of his poetry and the accompanying critical overview. Emerson argues that the poet is a seer who penetrates the mysteries of the universe and articulates the universal truths that bind humanity together. Hence, the true poet, who puts into words what others feel but cannot express, speaks for all men and women. What do you notice about both content and form? Can any of these poems be read on an allegorical level?
Read this critical overview of Emerson and "The Poet".
Read this poem alongside the other works in this subunit.
2.1.2: Edgar Allen Poe
Read this important critical statement on poetry by Poe, his most famous poem, and the accompanying critical overview. Poe and Emerson are usually considered two of the most important American Romantics. They felt that poetry was humankind's greatest artistic achievement, but they had distinctly different ideas about what constituted great poetry. "The Raven" demonstrates assonance, alliteration, simile, metaphor, personification, and onomatopoeia. If you are unfamiliar with these literary terms, search the internet for definitions and review how they apply to the stanzas in this poem.
Read this critical overview alongside the other works in this subunit.
2.2: The Question of Poetry's Social Role
- Read this profile of John Greeleaf Whittier, the Poet Laureate of Reform. Think about it as you explore his poem next.
Read this poem, which describes a slave auction in New Orleans during which the auctioneer describes the woman on the stands as "a good Christian", alongside the other works in this subunit.
Read this poem alongside the other works in this subunit.
Read this poem alongside the other works in this subunit.
Read Poe's review of Longfellow's ballads and poems. One of Poe's key contributions to poetic criticism was the idea that poetry should have no ulterior motive. As a self-identified Southerner, he took particular exception to anti-slavery poetry, such as that written by the popular Longfellow.
Read this review of Longfellow's poems alongside the other works in this subunit.
2.3: Walt Whitman, Free Verse, and the Poetics of Democracy
During the Civil War, Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington, DC. For three years, he visited soldiers during his spare time, dressing wounds and giving solace to the injured. These experiences led to the poems in his 1865 elegy for President Lincoln, Drum-Taps, which includes, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". In this poem, Whitman uses a literary device called apostrophe, which can be defined as a direct address of a person, thing, or concept that is physically absent or abstract. Examine his use of this technique and think about how it affects the meaning or content of the poem.
This article provides a brief explanation of free verse as a poetic form. How does the literary device you read about in the previous subunit, apostrophe, relate to the concept of free verse?
In his 1855 epic poem, Whitman celebrates democracy, love, friendship, and nature. Read this introductory essay to Leaves of Grass.
Whitman's expansive lyrical poem "Song of Myself", the first poem in the original edition of his lifelong project, Leaves of Grass, is one of the most celebrated poems in the American canon. In the poem, Whitman breaks away from standard meter and regular rhyme schemes, freely expressing a sense of "self" in the American vernacular.
Examine this famous steel engraving (from a daguerreotype) of Whitman, used to introduce his revolutionary volume of poetry Leaves of Grass in 1855.
Watch this lecture on Walt Whitman. Take notes to add to what you've already learned about Whitman and his writings.
2.4: Emily Dickinson and the Personal Lyric
During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson wrote poems that were bundled together as a cluster of pages called a fascicle. These bundles of pages found after her death by her sister Lavinia, who had been willed all of Emily Dickinson's earthly possessions. In total, there were 40 different fascicles, or booklets, of more than 800 poems. These poems were then published and edited, and the published versions were often changed from Dickinson's originals. Explore this website to see the poems contained in two original fascicles, #6 and #16. Compare the original manuscripts with various edited publications of Dickinson's poems, and read about the analysis of these poems.
Women's literature was suppressed by the patriarchal system of the nineteenth century, and society demanded reticence in writing by women, and the elimination of anger, sexual feelings, and ambition in their work. Many scholars of Dickinson talk about the ways she complied with this demand by using strategic reticence. Read this article carefully to understand the ways in which Dickinson created a unique poetic form to challenge the conventions of her time.
Building on what you've now read about Dickinson, read this poem and the following works in this subunit.
Read this poem alongside the other works in this subunit.
Read this poem alongside the other works in this subunit.
Read this poem alongside the other works in this subunit.
Listen to this critical commentary on the work of Emily Dickinson. Take notes on the lecture and those to what you have already learned about Dickinson and her large body of poetry. Think especially about her unique literary style, composed of dashes and lowercase letters.
Unit 2 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.