|  American Poetry: An Intimate History of the Citizen of the State
Poetry is relatively unexplored in Florida's English curriculum; therefore, I have reasoned that the best way to compensate for this would be to completely immerse myself in the history of American Poetry.
Beginning not, of course, with the history of poetry itself but rather with the Puritan era, it's succeeding eras (touching upon those dismal decades of melancholy as well as the flower-child inspiring years of Walt Whitman’s work), and concluding in the present so to speak. In so doing I hope to prove how the poetry both affected the nation, and was in turn affected (perhaps afflicted) by the social aspects and conflicts of the nation at the time.
Beginning with the Puritan, or more pc. Colonial, Era we find ourselves surrounded by outdated devices and jejune expressionism. Poets of the day had scarcely little exposure to anything else of literary merit at the time. Their work reflected their history, and the backgrounds of their works were most clearly derived from England diction and voice; used to reinforce the authority of the Bible and the church. Alienated for the most part from the rest of the world, such was circulated and consumed as poetic. The relevance of the Puritan Era regarding the influence and institution of poetry in America is that it established New England as the "hub" of American Poetry, which is a title that it holds to this day (for many reasons, not least among them being the original establishment of American schools of thought in the area and said schools' embrace of poetry and art). (Shucard 16)
Definitive Puritan Poetry, as it is recognized today, was fathered by many pious men; here, namely Edward Taylor. Taylor imagines himself a crumb of dust made from the Lord to display God's glory in his piece, "Prologue." "Thy Crumb of Dust breathes two words from its breast/That thou will guide its pen to write aright/o prove thou art, and that thou art the best/And shew thy properties to shine most bright/And then thy works will shine as flowers on stems/Or as Jewellary shops do jems." As was their custom with all things, Puritan poetry demanded obedience and flattery to God, a "God first" take on existence. This lead directly to almost the entirety of their work being devoted to the Lord, for fear that anything else may corrupt their society. (Mandelbaum 65)
Anne Bradstreet was among the poets to step forth in this period, and draws attention to herself for various reasons; she is one of the earlier English language poets, she was a female, she was the first female American poet. Bradstreet’s poetry remains unlike most Puritan forms, for as she does speak of God and faith and religion, she speaks more so (and in fact more lovingly) of her husband, family and household duties. Bradstreet also manages to document the hardships of the New England colonies and how they lived their lives-especially for women. In the poem "In Thankful Remembrance for My Dear Husband's Safe Arrival Sept. 3, 1662”, Anne prays to the Lord begging him for her husband's safe journey home; this was her communication to her husband. Lacking any other means, and the distances being so great, she could only ease her longing for her husband and her uneasiness regarding his safety through prayer to the Lord. (Mandelbaum 16)
What would then follow in the Revolutionary Period (1750-1800) changed not only the face of the world, but in turn American Poetry, and expression. Science and education became more prominent, with greater emphasis placed on literacy and appreciation of the finer arts. Poets such as the Hartford Wits, Phillip Freneau and Phillis Wheatly became most respected, and helped to touch the hearts and minds of the Revolutionary Era. (Folsom)
Formed from the wandering artists of the day, and wrought out of the common search for inspiration and appreciate the Hartford Wits (sometimes also known as the Connecticut Wits) were born. Consisting of the likes of Timothy Dwight, Joel Barlow, and John Trumbell, they prided themselves on writing poetry about political independence and revolution. "At this blest period, when the total race/shall speak one language and all truths embrace/Instruction clear a speedier course shall find/and open earlier on the infant mind," wrote Barlow in his work "The Columbiad" (Mandelbaum 68). They lacked the intellect to speak to Americans, and their products in an American voice, in the end their work failed to move the masses (rather becoming more like a mirror to the masses than a driver does), and their goals went unachieved. (Shucard 42)
Phillip Freanu is the proclaimed "most accomplished patriot poet of America" focusing more on patriotic and anti-British pieces, yet counter-balancing the angst with a "pontifical romantic nature… [And] qualities of the nineteenth century romantic verses." (Shucard 45). A prime example of his inspirational, fight-the-British poetry is "A Political Litany." Freanu writes; "From a Kingdom that bullies and hectors and swears/we send up to Heaven our wishes and prayers/that we, disunited, may freeman be still/And Britain go on-to be damned if she will." Much of America used Freanu's poetry to the effect of an artistic motivator against Britain. (Mandelbaum 52)
Phillis Wheatly, another Revolutionary Poet, gained prominence for the fact that was America's first African-American poet. Sold into slavery in 1761, she was bought by John Wheatly who taught her how to read and write. Wheatly published her first poem at thirteen and was then called a child prodigy. "Some view our sable race with scornful eye/'Their color is a diabolical dye.'/Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain/May be refined, and join the angelic train," Wheatly wrote in "On Being Brought from Africa to America." Abolitionists loved her and her poetry was paraded at protests; a showing of the injustice the slaves had to endure. (Folsom)
As the nineteenth century happened, eras and influences began to overlap, as artistry and expressionism became more varied and different approaches were experimented with. Romanticism spans the gap of1800-1860 yet Transcendentalism overlaps through 1840-1860. It is here we begin to experience (for the first time in America) the formation of schools of thought, and approaches to poetry that may in fact differ from their contemporaries.
Romanticism accepted nature as God, and did away the theory (of the Puritans) that all human beings were corrupted, or were born corrupt with Original Sin (Shucard 74). Poets of this era focused on the existence of the mind and body, and appreciated the perfection in the form of man and nature, visible entities, rather than an invisible God. Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, many of the abolitionist poets like George Moses Horton and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and the Fireside poets (William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier) affected the Romanticism period the hardest.
Dickinson is often referred to as the "New England Mystic", and all her poetry was published almost post-humorously as she became a hermit at the age of twenty-three; dedicating her life to writing and poetry. Dickinson's poetry is often said to be Puritan in diction but Romantic in symbol, and beautiful in conflict. "The smitten rock that gushes/the trampled steel that springs/A cheek is always redder/Just where the hectic stings!" she wrote in "A Wounded Deer leaps Highest." Using nature to intertwine and connect with human emotions, Dickinson fit the bill of revolutionary and experimental expression for the 1800's (note that despite its newness, it was common for people to "play-around" with this method). (Shucard 23)
The Fireside Poets got their name from their habit of reading poetry to American families around a fire. It is traditionally accepted that this group of poets put American poetry "on equal footing" with British poetry, and that Longfellow was by far the most talented of the group. Most of their work was probably lost, as only one-fourth of all their poetry is believed to have actually been set in writing. More often, they used improvisation and adaptation to their poems as they read them around the fire. (Shucard 81)
"To the states or any one of them, or any city of the states, resist much, obey little/Once inquisition obedience, once fully enslaved/Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterwards resumes its liberty," Walt Whitman wrote in "To the States." Political imagery is... rather more than obvious, and notorious. As the Revolutionary War slipped into the collective memory as a distant conflict, civil war was closely approaching and the northern and southern states were at odds. Witman's concern for the well-being of his country so occupied his thoughts so greatly that he, for once, abandoned his passion for grass to write on it. (Price)
George Moses Horton and Frances Watkins Harper are often compared, as naturally would be fellow African-American abolitionist poets and contemporaries. However, while they both wrote poems on slavery and the negative effects it held to society, Harper made this subject his primary concern. Horton, on the other hand, wrote about more commonplace and amicable subjects more familiar to the common person, like friendship. Harper's poems manage to clearly define the generation of freed black men, but no more clearly as in "The Slave Mother." "He is not hers, although she bore/for him a mother's pain/He is not hers, although her blood/Is coursing through his veins! /He is not hers, for cruel hands/May rudely tear apart/The only wreath of household love/That binds her breaking heart," Numerous times woman were pulled away from their children and family and had to suffer through that pain. (Mandelbaum 67)
The American Renaissance, also known as Transcendentalism, was heavily
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