Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric
Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric
Cite
Abstract
This book examines how Black poetics, in antagonism with White poetics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, produced the conditions for the invention of modern American poetry. Through inspired readings of the poetry of Phillis Wheatley Peters, George Moses Horton, Ann Plato, James Monroe Whitfield, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper—as well as the poetry of neglected but once popular White poets William Cullen Bryant and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—the book demonstrates how Black poets inspired the direction that American poetics has taken for the past two centuries. As an idea of poetry based on genres of poems such as ballads, elegies, odes, hymns, drinking songs, and epistles gave way to an idea of poetry based on genres of people—Black, White, male, female, Indigenous—almost all poetry became lyric poetry. The book discusses the important role played by Frederick Douglass as an influential editor and publisher of Black poetry, and it traces the twisted paths leading to our current understanding of lyric, along the way presenting not only a new history but a new theory of American poetry. A major reassessment of the origins and development of American poetics, the book argues against a literary critical narrative that links American modernism directly to British or European Romanticism, emphasizing instead the many ways in which early Black poets intervened by inventing what Wheatley called “the deep design” of American lyric.
-
Front Matter
-
1
What History Does to Us
-
2
Apostrophe, Animation, and Racism: Pierpont, Douglass, Whitfield—and Horton
-
3
Personification: On Phillis Wheatley’s Memory
-
4
Prosody: William Cullen Bryant and the White Romantic Lyric
-
5
The Poetess: Frances Ellen Watkins, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- Coda: The Prophecy
-
End Matter
Sign in
Personal account
- Sign in with email/username & password
- Get email alerts
- Save searches
- Purchase content
- Activate your purchase/trial code
- Add your ORCID iD
Purchase
Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.
Purchasing informationMonth: | Total Views: |
---|---|
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 3 |
October 2023 | 3 |
October 2023 | 3 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 3 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 2 |
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 1 |
November 2023 | 4 |
December 2023 | 1 |
December 2023 | 1 |
January 2024 | 1 |
January 2024 | 1 |
February 2024 | 1 |
February 2024 | 2 |
March 2024 | 1 |
April 2024 | 2 |
June 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 4 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
September 2024 | 2 |
October 2024 | 2 |
October 2024 | 1 |
October 2024 | 8 |
October 2024 | 1 |
October 2024 | 2 |
November 2024 | 2 |
November 2024 | 1 |
December 2024 | 1 |
December 2024 | 2 |
December 2024 | 3 |
April 2025 | 2 |
Get help with access
Institutional access
Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:
IP based access
Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.
Sign in through your institution
Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.
If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.
Sign in with a library card
Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.
Society Members
Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:
Sign in through society site
Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:
If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.
Sign in using a personal account
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.
Personal account
A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.
Viewing your signed in accounts
Click the account icon in the top right to:
Signed in but can't access content
Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.
Institutional account management
For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.