John Greenleaf Whittier: Selected Poems: (American Poets Project #10)

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Library of America, Mar 30, 2004 - Poetry - 230 pages
A beloved figure in his own era——a household name for such poems as “Barbara Frietchie” and “The Barefoot Boy”—John Greenleaf Whittier remains an emotionally honest, powerfully reflective voice. A Quaker deeply involved in the struggle against slavery (he was harassed by mobs more than once) he enlisted his poetry in the abolitionist cause with such powerful works as “The Hunters of Men,” “Song of Slaves in the Desert,” and “Ichabod!”, his mournful attack on Daniel Webster’s betrayal of the anti-slavery cause.

Whittier’s narrative gift is evident in such perennially popular poems as “Skipper Ireson’s Ride” and the Civil War legend “Barbara Frietchie,” while in his masterpiece “Snow-Bound” he created a vivid, flavorful portrait of the country life he knew as a child in New England. “His diction is easy, his detail rich and unassuming, his emotion deep,” writes editor Brenda Wineapple. “And the shale of his New England landscape reaches outward, promising not relief from pain but a glimpse of a better, larger world.”

About the American Poets Project
Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.

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Contents

Toussaint lOuverture
1
The Hunters of Men
14
The Huskers
27
The Haschish
42
The FruitGift
55
Letter 888
60
The Garrison of Cape Ann
76
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
90
The Eternal Goodness
104
from The Tent on the Beach
133
The Pressed Gentian
149
At Last
162
Note on the Texts
175
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About the author (2004)

Brenda Wineapple’s books include Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848–1877Hawthorne: A Life, and White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a 2014 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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