Comprehensive Anthology of American Poetry

“American Poetry” has been extensively anthologized; but so far no attempt has hitherto been made to present in one volume a selection which shall represent the whole range of it, from its beginnings down to the present day. In a few textbooks, it is true, one may find, along with prose selections also, a fairly adequate survey. But for some curious reason the notion of a compact and comprehensive anthology of the verse alone has not found expression. That such a thing should be useful goes without saying. American poetry, if one takes it as a whole, is not yet a great or rich poetry, though it has shown not infrequently the elements of greatness and richness; it has been provincial, uneven, tentative, brilliant; but if one cannot as yet say that it takes a very high place in the poetry of the world, as the expression of a national soul or culture, one can at least say emphatically that the time has come for a firm revision of our critical attitude toward it. It is time to regard American poetry as severely as we would regard Greek or Chinese or English poetry. For American poetry has reached that point at which one may say that it is mature. It has a history of nearly three hundred years. In sheer quantity, if one keeps in mind all the minor poets and poetasters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is enormous. In view of this, it has been the present editor’s intention to be somewhat severer with his material than his predecessors have been, in order that the process of clarification of this tradition might take a step forward. He has been rather hard on certain national favorites; it will be thought by some that he has been too drastic with Longfellow and Holmes and Whittier and Lowell and Lanier; that he has been too generous with Poe and Whitman and Dickinson; and that he has perhaps erred in proportion by giving to the poetry of the last twenty years so much more space than has been given to that of any preceding era. This new edition of the book has been extensively revised and updated.