1
AMERICA 2
‘ America’ is another
name for the United States of America or the U.S. or the U.S. of A
The Americans3
The indigenous peoples of America or
the Native Americans are believed to
have migrated from Asia, beginning
between 12,000 and 40,000 years ago.
In 1492, the explorer Christopher
Columbus, under contract to the
Spanish crown, made the first
contact with the indigenous people.
Early American Poetry4
The poetry before the founding of
the United States was largely oral.
Most of the early colonial poetry is
modeled on the British poetry of the
seventeenth century. The influence
of the Puritanism is clearly felt in
early American poetry.
ANNE BRADSTREET5
One of the first recorded poets of the
British colonies was Anne
Bradstreet (1612–1672), one of the
earliest known women poets who wrote in
English
Post-Independence American Poetry
6
The thirteen American colonies
declared themselves as
independent of the British Empire
on 4 July 1776.
The need to be free from British
poetic models and tradition is an
important concern of the Post-
Independence American poets.
Post Independence American Poets
7
Some of the most important
poets of the nineteenth century
were Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803–1882), Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (1807–1882), and
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849).
Post Independence American Poets
8
The search for distinctive
American voice and identity is
reflected in the presence of
American landscape and native
traditions in their poetry.
AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM 9
The American Transcendentalism began
in 1848 as a protest against the general
state of culture and society. It was
founded on the belief that the
ideal spiritual state "transcends" the
physical and empirical and can be
realized only through the
individual's intuition, rather than through
the doctrines of established religions.
PROMINENT TRANSCENDENTALISTS
10
Prominent transcendentalists
included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry
David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman (1819
-1892).
Transcendentalism was the distinctly
American strain of
English Romanticism of William
Wordsworth and S.T.Coleridge. Emerson
is believed to have met these two poets.
EMERGENCE OF THE TRUE AMERICAN VOICE
11
Emerson declared in 1837, ‘Our day
of dependence, our long
apprenticeship to the learning of
other lands, draws to a close’.
Two very different poets represent
the emergence of this new spirit
and genuinely American voice.
WHITMAN AND DICKINSON12
Walt Whitman (1819–1892 )
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
TWO AMERICAN POETIC IDIOMS
13
Louis Untermeyer (Modern American
Poetry) notes that these two poets
represent two major American
poetic idioms—the free metric and
direct emotional expression of
Whitman, and the gnomic obscurity
and irony of Dickinson—both of
which would stamp the American
poetry of the 20th century.
‘HE IS AMERICA’14
Whitman is often called
America’s first ‘poet of
Democracy’.
Modernist poet
Ezra Pound said
“He is America.”
WALT WHITMAN 15
Walt Whitman was born into a
working class family in West Hills,
New York, a village near Hempstead,
Long Island, on May 31, 1819, just
thirty years after George Washington
was inaugurated as the first
president of the newly formed United
States.
WALT WHITMAN : A LIFE16
Whitman worked as a journalist,
a teacher, a government clerk,
and a volunteer nurse during
the American Civil War (1861–
1865) in addition to publishing
his poetry.
WALT WHITMAN : A LIFE17
After a stroke towards the end
of his life, he moved to Camden,
New Jersey where his health
further declined. He died at age
72 and his funeral became a
public spectacle.
AN AMERICAN EPIC18
Whitman's major work, Leaves of
Grass, was first published in 1855 with
his own money. The work was an
attempt at reaching out to the common
person with ‘an American epic’. He
continued expanding and revising it
until his death in 1892.
LEAVES OF GRASS 19
Walt Whitman, age
37, frontispiece to Leaves of Grass steel
engraving by Samuel Hollyer
LEAVES OF GRASS 20
Leaves of Grass has its genesis in
an essay called ‘The Poet’ (1845)
by Emerson, which expressed the
need for the United States to have
its own new and unique poet to
write about the new country's
virtues and vices.
LEAVES OF GRASS 21
The title Leaves of Grass was
a pun. "Grass" was a term given by
publishers to works of minor value
and "leaves" is another name for
the pages on which they were
printed.
ONE'S-SELF I SING.
“ ONE'S-SELF I sing—a simple,
separate Person; Yet utter the
word Democratic, the word En-
masse ……………
Of Life immense in passion,
pulse, and power, Cheerful—for
freest action form'd, under the
laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing”
22
One of the most
important poems in Leaves of
Grass
“ One’s Self I Sing”
TERRY MULCAIRE ON “One’s Self I Sing”
23
‘A poetic universe of productive
tension is hinted by that "Yet"; the
tense equipoise between individualism
and democracy, this poem suggests, is
the foundational theme of Whitman’s
book. The poem then goes on to
introduce the site and symbol for this
reconciliation of individual to mass: the
body.’
I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC
I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I
engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with
them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them
full with the charge of the Soul.
24
This radical power of the human body is
celebrated in the poem ‘ I Sing the Body Electric’.
I SING the Body electric;
‘The Self’ and the ‘ I’25
Whitman seems to put himself in the
center, but the "self" of the poem's
speaker - the "I" of the poem - should
not be limited to or confused with the
person of the historical Walt Whitman.
This is an expansive persona, one that
has exploded the conventional
boundaries of the self. As he says, ‘I am
large, I contain multitudes’
OTHER FAMOUS POEMS OF WHITMAN
26
Some other famous poems of Whitman
are ‘ Out of the Cradle Endlessly
Rocking’, ‘ I hear America Singing’ , ‘A
Noiseless patient Spider’.
His poems like ‘When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d , and ‘ O Captain,
My Captain’ are elegies on the death
of Abraham Lincoln
EMILY DICKINSON 27
One of the most important American
poets and contemporaries of Walt
Whitman is Emily Dickinson. She
was born 10 December 1830, in
Amherst, Massachusetts, where she
lived until her death on 15 May
1886.
EMILY DICKINSON 28
Although she was a prolific
private poet, fewer than a dozen
of her nearly eighteen hundred
poems were published during
her lifetime.
I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd
advertise – you know!How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog – To tell one's name – the
livelong June – To an admiring Bog!
29
EMILY DICKINSON AT NINE I'm Nobody! Who are You?
EMILY DICKINSON
EMILY DICKINSON : A LIFE30
Dickinson was a private and
introverted person who disliked
fame as the poem ‘ I am Nobody’
shows. Adrienne Rich notes that
this privacy was freedom to her.
Dickinson’s life as well her poetry
stands in complete contrast to
Whitman.
EMILY DICKINSON’S STYLE31
Dickinson's poems are unique.
They contain short lines,
typically lack titles, slant rhyme ,
and unconventional
capitalization and punctuation.
EMILY DICKINSON : MAJOR THEMES
32
Many of her poems deal with
themes of death and immortality,
two recurring topics in letters to
her friends.
The influence of American
Transcendentalism is also felt in
her works.
‘BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH’
“ Because I could not stop for
Death – He kindly stopped
for me – The Carriage held
but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.”
The noted critic Allen Tate says about this typical Dickinson poem ‘ If the word great means anything in poetry, this poem is one of the greatest in the English language’.
33
THE TRADITION OF AMERICAN POETRY
34
The tradition of American poetry can
be represented by the contrasting
figures of Whitman and Dickinson.
What unites both is the distinctive
and individualistic voice that is very
American and very powerful.
35
The passionate quest for
genuine American identity and
the spirit of non-conformity
continued in the twentieth
century.
THE TRADITION OF AMERICAN POETRY
THE RISE OF MODERNISM36
Modernism emerged in the early
part of the twentieth century as
a reaction against the
sentimental and romantic
Victorian poetry.
THE RISE OF MODERNISM37
Ezra Pound (1885–1972) and T. S.
Eliot (1888–1965) steered American
poetry toward greater density,
difficulty, and opacity, with the use of
techniques like fragmentation, ellipsis,
allusion, juxtaposition, ironic and
shifting personae, and mythic
parallelism.
TWO EARLY MODERNISTS38
Ezra Pound (1885–1972) T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)
IMAGISM 39
Modernist poetry in English is
generally considered to have emerged
with the appearance of the Imagist
movement. Imagism favored precision
of imagery and clear, sharp language
and rejected the sentiment and
discursiveness typical of
much Romantic and Victorian poetry.
They emphasized the use of free verse.
OTHER MODERNIST POETS40
Other modernist poets of the period
include Gertrude Stein (1874–
1946), Wallace Stevens(1879–1955),
William Carlos Williams (1883–
1963), Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) (1886–
1961), , Marianne Moore(1887–
1972), E. E. Cummings (1894–1962),
and Hart Crane (1899–1932).
ROBERT FROST41
Robert Frost (1874-1963) is one the most influential American poets of the twentieth century.
ABOUT ROBERT FROST42
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco
on March 26, 1874. He moved to New
England at the age of eleven and
became interested in reading and
writing poetry during his high school
years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He
was enrolled at Dartmouth College in
1892, and later at Harvard, though he
never earned a formal degree.
POETRY OF ROBERT FROST43
He is highly regarded for his realistic
depictions of rural life and his command
of American colloquial speech. Though
his poems avoid the experimental
excesses and techniques of the
modernist contemporaries, a very
modern and very American sensibility is
felt in Frost’s poetry. The influence of
Imagism is also seen on his poetry.
The New England Poet44
His work frequently employed settings
from rural life in New England in the
early twentieth century, using them to
examine complex social and
philosophical themes. A popular and
often-quoted poet, Frost was honored
frequently during his lifetime,
receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for
Poetry.
MENDING WALL45
A typical Frost poem is ‘Mending Wall’,
which appeared in North of Boston
(1914). It is meditative lyric that
reports and assesses a dialogue
between neighbors who have joined in
the annual occupation of rebuilding the
wall which separates their farms.
GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS
46
The poem reexamines the stock
belief regarding the relationship
between human beings and the
relationship of human beings
with nature.
47
The speaker in the poem a New
England farmer questions
conventional wisdom of mankind
-‘Good fences make good neighbors’
and indicates that forces of nature
do not accept human boundaries.
GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS
MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP
48
‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening’ which appeared in Frost’s
1922 collection New Hampshire is
widely known. The last stanza of the poem is
extremely famous:“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I
sleep, And miles to go before I
sleep.”
MEYERS ONSTOPPING BY THE WOODS
49
Though the poem is read simplistically as
the conflict between ‘beauty’ and ‘duty’ or
between the romantic world view and the
pragmatic one, Jeffery Meyers says ‘The
theme of "Stopping by Woods"-is the
temptation of death, even suicide,
symbolized by the woods that are filling up
with snow on the darkest evening of the
year. The speaker says, "The woods are
lovely, dark and deep," but he resists their
morbid attraction.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN50
One of the most famous American
poems is ‘The Road Not Taken’ by
Robert Frost. It was published in the
collection Mountain Interval in 1916.
The speaker in the poem is a traveler
who is remembering his journey. He
says that he had to make a choice
between two roads at an important
juncture in his life.
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY
51
The speaker concludes by saying:I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
The traveler's choice in living unconventional life indicates his philosophical outlook, his individualism and non-conformist attitude.
THE JOURNEY OF AMERICAN POETRY
52
The journey of American poetry
can be summed up as follows:
The attitudes of American poets
are like those of the speaker-
individualistic, non-conformist
and always keen to venture into
unknown territories.
The American Tradition of the New
53
The major American poets like
Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson
and Robert Frost have always
believed in taking the Road
which is usually not taken and
which ‘ wanted wear’.
54
Consequently, they have made
all the difference to literary
traditions by opening new
pathways and streets and hence
have been immensely influential
internationally.
The American Tradition of the New
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY:
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN
POETRY WITH REFERENCE TO
WHITMAN, DICKINSON AND FROST