Related Guides
Featured Resources
- The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Poetry by The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Poetry comprises original essays by eighteen distinguished scholars. It offers a critical overview of major and emerging American poets of the twentieth century, in addition to critical accounts of the representative schools, movements, regional settings, archival resources, and critical reception that define modern American poetry. The Companion stretches the narrow term of 'literary modernism' - which encompasses works published from approximately 1890 to 1945 - to include a more capacious and usable account of American poetry's evolution from the twentieth century to the present. The essays collected here seek to account for modern American verse against the contexts of broad political, social, and cultural fields and forces. This volume gathers together major voices that represent the best in contemporary critical approaches and methods.Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2014
Three American Poets : Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Herman Melville by
In Three American Poets, William C. Spengemann describes the very different sorts of poetry Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville wrote, their comparable reasons for writing as they did, and the posthumous critical effects of their having done so. By linking these utterly singular poets and their work--verse connected by shared qualities of oddity, complexity, and difficulty--Spengemann illuminates the poets' efforts to create verse equal to the demands of a changing nineteenth century. All three responded to a widespread sense of loss--loss, above all, of Christian understandings of the origins, nature, and purpose of human existence, both individual and collective. All three, too, regarded poetry as the sole means of dealing with that loss and of comprehending not only a changing world but the old world from which the new one had departed, and hence the connections between the vanished, discredited past, the baffling present, and the as yet inscrutable future. Spengemann suggests that the poetic eccentricities of Whitman, Melville, and Dickinson arose directly from their use of poetry as a vehicle of thought; each devised a poetic language either to attempt to recover a lost sense of assurance threatened by the collapse of traditional faith or to discover an altogether new ground of knowledge and being. Spengemann guides us in parsing their respective poetics with masterful readings closely attuned to diction, syntax, meter, and figure. His authoritative and empirical descriptions of the poets' verse and their respective characteristic aesthetics afford us heightened access to the poems and the pleasures peculiar to them, in the process making us better readers of poetry in general.
Call Number: Mugar Stacks PS310.M57 S64 2010 and OnlinePublication Date: 2010
A Companion to Walt Whitman by
Comprising more than 30 substantial essays written by leadingscholars, this companion constitutes an exceptionally broad-rangingand in-depth guide to one of America?s greatest poets. Makes the best and most up-to-date thinking on Whitmanavailable to students Designed to make readers more aware of the social and culturalcontexts of Whitman?s work, and of the experimental nature ofhis writing Includes contributions devoted to specific poetry and proseworks, a compact biography of the poet, and a bibliography
Call Number: Mugar Stacks PS3238 .C57 2006 and OnlinePublication Date: 2006A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson by One of America's most celebrated women, Emily Dickinson was virtually unpublished in her own time and unknown to the public at large. Today her poetry is commonly anthologized and widely praised for its precision, its intensity, its depth and beauty. Dickinson's life and work, however, remain in important ways mysterious. This collection of essays, all of them previously unpublished, represent the best of contemporary scholarship and points the way toward exciting new directions for the future. The volume includes a biographical essay that covers some of the major turning points in the poet's life, especially those emphasized by her letters. Other essays discuss Dickinson's religious beliefs, her response to the Civil War, her class-based politics, her place in a tradition of American women's poetry, and the editing of her manuscripts. A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson concludes with a rich bibliographical essay describing the controversial history of Dickinson's life in print, together with a substantial bibliography of relevant sources.
Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2004
Featured Films
- Voices & visions. 12, Walt Whitman Brilliant readings of Walt Whitman's poems demonstrate his American vision and style and vividly convey their poignance and sheer power. Whitman's sources, including Emerson, the King James Bible, opera, and political oratory, are revealed.
- Voices & visions. 3, Emily Dickinson Dramatic scenarios and New England landscapes illuminate the passionate genius of Emily Dickinson, whose poems represent a broad range of imaginative experience.
- Voices & visions. 6, Langston Hughes : the dream keeper Langston Hughes wrote of the beauty, dignity, and heritage of blacks in America. Interviews, music, and dance performances convey his work and influence, discussed by James Baldwin and biographer Arnold Rampersad.
- Voices & visions. 4, T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot's life, influence, and poetry from the bold originality of "Prufrock" to the probing, meditative style of "Four Quartets" are explored with photos, archival footage, and discussion with friends, critics, and scholars.
