THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE TheCambridgeHistoryofAmericanLiteratureaddressesthebroadspectrumofnewand establisheddirectionsinallbranchesofAmericanwritingandincludestheworkof scholars and critics who have shaped, and who continue to shape, what has become a major area of literary scholarship. The authors span three decades of achievement in American literary criticism, thereby speaking for the continuities as well as the disruptions sustained between generations of scholarship. Generously proportioned narratives allow at once for a broader vision and sweep of American literary history thanhasbeenpossiblepreviously,andwhilethevoiceoftraditionalcriticismforms a background for these narratives, it joins forces with the diversity of interests that characterizecontemporaryliterarystudies. TheHistoryofferswide-ranging,interdisciplinaryaccountsofAmericangenresand periods.Generatedpartlybytherecentunearthingofpreviouslyneglectedtexts,the expansionofmaterialinAmericanliteraturecoincideswithadramaticincreaseinthe number and variety of approaches to that material. The multifaceted scholarly and criticalenterpriseembodiedinTheCambridgeHistoryofAmericanLiteratureaddresses thesemultiplicities–thesocial,thecultural,theintellectual,andtheaesthetic–and demonstratesaricherconceptofauthorityinliterarystudiesthanisfoundinearlier accounts. Thisvolumeisthefirstcompletenarrativehistoryofnineteenth-centuryAmerican poetry,rangingfromtherevolutionaryperiodthroughtheCivilWarandthesurging pluralismandemergingmasssocietyattheturnofthecentury.BarbaraPackerexplores therichesoftheneoclassicalandsatiricformsmasteredbytheearlyFederalistpoets; the creative reaches of once-celebrated, and still compelling, poets such as Philip Freneau,JohnGreenleafWhittier,andthedistinctivelyricformsdevelopedbyRalph WaldoEmersonandtheTranscendentalists.ShiraWoloskyprovidesanewperspective on the achievement of female poets of the period, as well as a close appreciation of African-Americanpoets,includingthecollectivefolkauthorsoftheNegrospirituals. She reveals the virtuosity and historical force of the “genteel poets,” from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. to George Santayana. And she offers a fresh and illuminating analysis of the major works of the period, from Poe through Melville and Crane, to thepoeticgiantsofthecentury,WaltWhitmanandEmilyDickinson.Theauthors of this volume discuss this extraordinary literary achievement in both formal terms and in its sustained engagement with changing social and cultural conditions. In doingsotheyrecoverandelucidateAmericanpoetryofthenineteenthcenturyforour twenty-first-centurypleasure,profit,andrenewedstudy. THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Volume 4 1800–1910 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Volume 4 Nineteenth-Century Poetry 1800–1910 General Editor sacvan bercovitch HarvardUniversity CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States ofAmerica by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521301084 © Cambridge University Press 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions ofrelevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction ofany part may take place without the written permission ofCambridge University Press. First published 2004 Reprinted 2007 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-521-30108-4hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy ofURLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. contents Acknowledgments pageviii Introduction 1 american verse traditions, 1800–1855 BarbaraPacker Preface:reverenceandambition 11 1. Neoclassicism:comicandsatiricverse 17 2. Earlynarrativeandlyric 41 3. Transcendentalism 87 4. JohnGreenleafWhittier 137 poetry and public discourse, 1820–1910 ShiraWolosky Preface:theclaimsofrhetoric 147 1. Modestclaims 155 2. ClaimingtheBible 200 3. Poeticlanguages 248 4. Pluralidentities 324 5. WaltWhitman:theofficeofthepoet 362 6. EmilyDickinson:theviolenceoftheimagination 427 Chronology,1800–1910 NealDolan 481 Bibliography 534 Index 540 vii acknowledgments FROM THE GENERAL EDITOR MythankstoHarvardUniversityforsupportofthisprojectandtoRayRyan of Cambridge University Press for his editorial guidance. I am grateful once againtoPeterButtigieg,mysuperbresearchassistant.Onapersonalnote:my abidinggratitudeandlovetomysister,NinelSegal,andmybrother-in-law, CharlesSegal. Here as in several previous volumes, the Introduction is divided into two parts. The first part (pp. 1–5), describing the design and aims of this multi- volume project as a whole, was written by me. The second part (pp. 5–8), describing the organization and contents of this particular volume, was a collaborativeeffort,writtenjointlybymeandbyanoutstandingrepresentative ofthecurrentgenerationofAmericanists–representative,thatis,ofthetype of reader for whom this History is ideally intended. I was most fortunate to enlist Neal Dolan (now an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto) forthistask.Heturnedouttobethemainauthorinourcollaboration,andI amgratefultohimforallhedid,bothinthismatterandinhiscompilingof theChronology. SacvanBercovitch HarvardUniversity AMERICAN VERSE TRADITIONS, 1800–1855 IwishtothanktheUCLAAcademicSenateCommitteeonResearchforgrants supporting this project. A fellowship year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford gave me time to begin the work, and sabbatical leaves from UCLA helped me complete it. I am grateful to my UCLA colleagues Paul Sheats and Thomas Wortham for their willingness to discuss nineteenth-century English and American poetry with me. John HollanderandDavidBromwichwerecorrespondentsgenerouswiththeirtime viii acknowledgments ix andinformation.Iwashelpedbytwotalentedresearchassistants,AnneShee- han and Martin Griffin. And Sacvan Bercovitch served as critic, encourager, andadvisorthroughoutthewritingofthetext. BarbaraPacker UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles POETRY AND PUBLIC DISCOURSE, 1820–1910 IwishtothankfirstandlastSacvanBercovitch.Workingwithhimhasbeen anextraordinaryexperienceamongthemanyadventuresofthisproject.Iwish to thank Harold Bloom, who has been and remains a guiding figure in my experience of poetry. I wish to thank my former teachers and colleagues in thestudyofpoetryandculture:EmoryElliott,RobertFagles,JosephFrank, GeoffreyHartman,JohnHollander,A.WaltonLitz,AlanTrachtenberg.Iwish tothankfortheirsuggestions,encouragement,andthedelightoftheircom- panyinmyworkonthisvolume,ShuliBarzilai,SandyandEmilyBudick,Tova Halbertal,BeverlyHaviland,MichaelKramer,CristanneMiller,IlanaPardes, JeffreyPerl.IwishtothanktheIsraelAcademyofArtsandSciencesforfellow- shipsupport,andtheHebrewUniversityofJerusalemforgenerousSabbatical time.Iwishtohonorthememoryofmybrother,GaryWolosky,andtogive heartfeltthankstomyparents,BlancheandDavidWolosky;mysisters,Leslie Wolosky and Rickey Wolosky Palkovitz; and to my husband, Ariel Weiss. I dedicatethissectionofthevolumetomychildren,Talya,Elazar,Tamar,and Nomi. Versionsofmaterialinthisvolumehavebeenpublishedas: “An American-Jewish Typology: Emma Lazarus and the Figure of Christ,” Prooftexts16:2,May1996,113–25. “SantayanaandHarvardFormalism,”Raritan18:4,Spring1999,51–67. “Women’sBibles,”FeministStudies,28:1,Spring2002. “The Claims of Rhetoric: Towards an Historical Poetics,” American Literary History,15:1,Spring2003,14–22. “BeingintheBody,”TheCambridgeCompaniontoEmilyDickinson,ed.Wendy Martin, Cambridge University Press, New York: Cambridge University Press,2002,129–41. EmilyDickinson’spoetryisreprintedbypermissionofthepublishersand theTrusteesofAmherstCollegefromThePoemsofEmilyDickinson,3volumes, ed. Thomas H. Johnson, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Copy- right1951,1955,1979bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege;and The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, MA: The