Three Centuries of American Poetry [Paperback]

Allen Mandelbaum (Editor), Robert D. Richardson Jr. (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 1999

A comprehensive overview of America's vast poetic heritage, Three Centuries of American Poetry features the work of some 150 of our nation's finest writers. It includes selections from Anne Bradstreet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and Gertrude Stein, as well as significant works of lesser-known American poets.

From the Revolutionary and Civil Wars to the Romantic Era and the Gilded and Modern Ages, this unrivaled anthology also presents a memorable array of rare ballads, songs, hymns, spirituals, and carols that echo through our nation's history. Highlights include Native American poems, African American writings, and the works of Quakers, colonists, Huguenots, transcendentalists, scholars, slaves, politicians, journalists, and clergymen.

These discerning selections demonstrate that the American canon of poetry is as diverse as the nation itself, and constantly evolving as we pass through time. Most important, this collection strongly reflects the peerless stylings that mark the American poetic experience as unique. Here, in one distinguished volume, are the many voices of the New World.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In the exceedingly brief, almost offhand introduction to this chunky anthology, the editors assert that "there ain't no canon," and that their aim is to hold out "an invitation to the reader of today and to those poets whose names we do not yet know." Such sloppy vagaries aside, one assumes that their intent is to represent diversity of a sort, but in fact two-thirds of the volume is made up of 19th-century poetry covered far more thoroughly in the Library of America's American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (LJ 9/1/93), and no rationale is given for the rather strange cut-off date of 1923?unless it has something to do with copyright. There are the usual heavy doses of Whitman, Dickinson, and Stevens, a smattering of spirituals, popular song lyrics, and Native American poems, along with an occasional dash of obscure names such as Ellen Sturgis Hooper and Lucretia Davidson. But given its lack of headnotes or other supporting scholarly materials, this is yet one more hastily contrived, redundant anthology no one has been waiting for. Not recommended.?Fred Muratori, Cornell University Lib., Ithaca, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Canon. No word is dirtier among academics these days. So when coeditors Mandelbaum and Richardson deny that their fat, enjoyable anthology is intended to establish one, they ease its way into curricular employment. Regular poetry readers won't care one way or t'other but will care that so much of the book's contents is relatively fresh. That can be ascertained by comparing the nineteenth-century poems here with those in John Hollander's splendid American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (1993). Mandelbaum and Richardson present many different, equally fine, and often lesser-known poems by major and minor figures alike (in the case of Longfellow, they present some late work as good as, maybe better than, what Hollander presents). Like Hollander, they include song texts and English versions of Indian poetry--again, many different ones. Unlike him, they give luscious samplings of Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet from colonial days, and of all the modernist heroes from early in this century. Hip, hip, hurrah! Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (March 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553375180
• ISBN-13: 978-0553375183
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.6 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #816,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction to poetry, March 27, 2000

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John Gale (Rockville, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Three Centuries of American Poetry (Paperback)

While skimping out on a few of the more famous (or so I believe) poems by these authors, this book is a very good introduction to the american realm of poetry. I was disappointed to not find some of my more favorite poems by people such as R.Frost and J.D.Hatter, but was happy to find many more that I did like by authors previously unbeknownst to me.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Anthology, November 4, 2009

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Jim Mann (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Three Centuries of American Poetry (Paperback)

This is a great anthology of American poetry, containing a very good selection of poems from both major poets and less well known ones. It's a pleasure reading both poets I know and those I'm unfamiliar with.

So, why four stars instead of five? It's based on a design choice in the book. The book does not have running page heads. This might not matter in a novel (though I can't think of any novels that I own that don't have running heads), but is very annoying in an anthology -- especially a poetry anthology. Like most people, I don't read poetry anthologies from start to finish. Instead, I pick it up and flip through it. But with this book, you open to an unfamiliar poem and want to know who the poet is. Look to the running head -- but there is no running head. So you have to start paging back, until you come to the name of the poet. Annoying.

But otherwise, I'd heartily recommend this book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good anthology, February 7, 2010

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Connecticut bookworm (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Three Centuries of American Poetry (Hardcover)

This is a fine anthology of famous and not-so-famous poems from the 17th century to the present. It could have been improved by a few lines of commentary on each poem. The short biorgraphies at the end are helpful.