Early American Poetry: Selections from Bradstreet, Taylor, Dwight, Freneau, and Bryant

Front Cover
Jane Donahue Eberwein
University of Wisconsin Press, 1978 - 383 pages

Here is the first major-figure anthology of American poetry of the colonial and early national periods, an indispensable volume for both students and scholars of American literature and civilization.
Five major literary figures are spotlighted: Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), Edward Taylor (1642?"-1729), Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), Philip Freneau (1752-1832), and William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). An introduction to each chapter summarizes the life of the poet, reviews his or her literary career, describes and evaluates artistic achievement, and places the poet in an intellectual context. The writer's relationship to changing religious, philosophical, political, and cultural patters is established. The contemporary perspective is augmented by the inclusion of an appendix which presents three important poems by other writers: Micheal Wigglesworth's "God's Controversy with New England," Ebenezer Cook's The Sot-Weed Factor, and Joel Barlow's "Hasty Pudding."
Eberwein goes beyond the most popular and familiar works to include those of unrecognized literary merit, presenting a thoroughly unique approach which illuminates the full range of the writers' themes, forms and poetic voices.

Contents

xiii
14
In Reference to Her Children
44
From the Andover Manuscript
56
EDWARD TAYLOR 1642?1729
70
The Frowardness of the Elect in the Work
76
From Preparatory Meditations First Series
90
56 Meditation Joh 15 24 Had I not done
113
142 Meditation Can 6 9 My Dove is One
119
Hessian Doctor
224
From Poems Written between the Years 1768 1794
235
From A Collection of Poems on American Affairs
243
From The Fredonian
252
Michael Wigglesworth 16311705
321
Ebenezer Cook c 1670c 1732
339
Joel Barlow 17541812
362
INDEX OF POETS AND TITLES
377

PHILIP FRENEAU 17521832
190
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