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5.0 out of 5 stars
Nineteenth Century America as Seen Through the Eyes of its Female Poets, December 9, 2007
The general popularity of poetry in the 19th century meant that its writers were well-known and their work appreciated. It also meant that, for some, their work would survive the passage of time.
That is, if the poets were male. Mention the appelation "19th Century Female American Poet" and all that generally comes to mind is Emily Dickinson, a poet who was not even published during her lifetime (aside from a small handful of poems). There were dozens of other female poets in 19th century America who were writing and being widely read, poets whose work was forgotten shortly after their deaths.
The Toby Press and editor Shira Wolosky have sought to remedy this situation by publishing in one volume the verse of ten 19th century female American poets. Wolosky offers an in-depth introduction to the work and life of each poet (focusing just a bit more on the work than on the life) and also includes an unusually large sampling of each poet's verse.
Reading through these poems is like getting a poetic and and distinctly female glimpse of 19th century America. For example, while many poets wrote about the evils of slavery, Francis Watkins Harper chose to write such a poem focussing on the relationship between a slave mother and her child in the poem "The Slave Mother": "They tear him from her circling arm/Her last and fond embrace/Oh! Never more may her sad eyes/Dwell on his mournful face."
Lydia Huntley Sigourney, writing in the early 19th century, gives a respectful, poignant adieu to the dimishing Native American in such poems as "Funeral of Mazeen," "Indian Girl's Burial," "Indian Names" while also waxing lyrical about other current events in poems such as "On the Administration of Michigan into the Union," "The Western Emigrant" and "The Mother of Washington."
During the 19th century it was very difficult to balance the demands of domesticity with writing and so many poets included in this collection chose to forgo marriage altogether, but in their writings one can feel the rumblings of the nascent women's movement. For instance, in her poem "Was He Henpecked?" Phoebe Cary has much to say, quite humorously, about the inequalities of marriage in the 19th century: "'Now why,' he said, 'can't such as you/Accept what we assign them?/You have your rights, 'tis very true,/But then, we should define them! . . . I'd keep you in the chicken yard/Safe, honored and respected;/From all that makes us rough and hard/Your sex should be protected.'"
There are also quite a few Biblically-themed poems, especially towards the beginning of the collection (it is arranged chronologically in order of birth), and many which explore certain Bible characters. I believe there were at least several written on the character Vashti, but there are also poems regarding Noah, Amos, Abraham, Jeremiah, Rizpah and Sarah.
This volume also contains a large sampling of Emily Dickinson's poems in their original state, complete with dashes and without any titles, which gives the reading a more immediate feel than what can often be found in edited versions of her work.
Other female poets included are Lucy Larcom, Julia Ward Howe, Helen Fisk Hunt Jackson, Emma Lazarus, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Reading through this collection gives one a fascinating glimpse of 19th century America through the lense of its female poets.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
American Nineteenth Century Women Poets: Emily and some of the best of the rest, May 15, 2011
This is a surprisingly rich and interesting anthology. Shira Wolosky writes a learned introduction to the poetry of Lydia Hunt Sigourney,Lucy Larcom, Francis Watkins Harper,Alice and Phoebe Cary,Julia Ward Howe, Emily Dickinson,Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson, Emma Lazarus,Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She shows not only the literary but the social and political significance of the writing. She makes a strong case for the idea that many of these women poets were neglected, and slighted simply because they were women. She argues that they rightfully should have had a place in Anthologies of the Poetry of the Time along with Emerson, Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow and others.
She of course understands that in purely literary and aesthetic terms the judgment of Time is the correct one. Emily Dickinson is the great poet in this collection and stands with Whitman as the great American poet not only of her own century. Wolosky stresses in the anthology an element of Dickinson's work which I was not aware of , her war poems. Consider this opening stanza of one of her war poems, and understand the twentieth- century did not invent the concept of survivor- guilt.
" It feels a shame to be alive-
When Men so brave- are dead-
One envies the Distinguished Dust-
Permitted -such a Head-
Here is another Dickinson lesser known poem. Wolowsky rightly points out how Dickinson is always surprising us- how no selection of her poems can really do her justice.
" I took my power in my Hand-
And went against the World-
Twas not so much as David-had-
But I- was twice as bold-
I aimed my Pebble-but Myself
Was all the one that fell-
Was it Goliath- was too large-
Or was myself-too small? "
Still the major purpose of the Anthology is not to tell us about a great poet we already knew about but rather to argue for the significance of the other nineteenth- century women poets. Of these I took interest especially in the work of Francis Watkins Harper a black woman poet. She was fiercely patriotic ,a strong supporter of woman's rights and a fighter for equality for the 'Negro'. Her composition 'Aunt Chloe' which tells of a slave woman's children being sold away is written in simple clear strong language.
Here are the opening two stanza:
I remember well remember
That dark and dreadful day
When they whispered to me"Chloe"
Your children's sold away!"
It seemed as if a bullet
Had shot me through and through
And I felt as if my heart strings
Was breaking right in two.
I also found it interesting to learn more about the strong historical and Jewish sense of Emma Lazarus, of 'Statue of Liberty' fame. Wolosky informs us that her great poem was only actually put on pedestal of the Statue in 1945. The vision of America as the land rescuing the persecuted and poor was after all , not fulfilled in the years from 1924 to 1945 when the gates were sealed to those fleeing Fascist Europe.
Still her lines are one of the most powerful presentations of one of America's founding ideals.
"Keep ancient lands your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these , the homeless, tempest -tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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