Why Antislavery Poetry Matters Now

This book explores the nineteenth-century poetry of slavery and freedom, arguing that it is a powerful alliance across racial and religious boundaries and can and must matter today. It examines antislavery poetry in light of recent work by historians, scholars, African-Americanists, and theorists of poetics, including canonical and lesser-known writers.

Format: Hardback
Length: 308 pages
Publication date: 20 June 2023
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

The poetry of the transatlantic abolitionist movement was a powerful alliance across racial and religious boundaries, challenging the demarcation in literary studies between cultural and aesthetic approaches. It is particularly relevant today, as it speaks to a broad cross-section of society with moral authority, intellectual ambition, and artistic complexity. Brian Yothers examines antislavery poetry in light of recent work by historians, scholars in literary, cultural, and rhetorical studies, African-Americanists, scholars of race and gender studies, and theorists of poetics. The range of writers considered includes canonical figures such as Whitman, Barrett Browning, Beecher Stowe, DuBois, Melville, as well as those whose influence has faded, such as Longfellow, Lydia Huntley Sigourney, John Pierpont, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and African American writers whose work has been recovered in recent decades, such as James M. Whitfield, William Wells Brown, George Moses Horton, and Frances E. W. Harper.

The poetry of the transatlantic abolitionist movement was a powerful alliance across racial and religious boundaries, challenging the demarcation in literary studies between cultural and aesthetic approaches. It is particularly relevant today, as it speaks to a broad cross-section of society with moral authority, intellectual ambition, and artistic complexity. Brian Yothers examines antislavery poetry in light of recent work by historians, scholars in literary, cultural, and rhetorical studies, African-Americanists, scholars of race and gender studies, and theorists of poetics. The range of writers considered includes canonical figures such as Whitman, Barrett Browning, Beecher Stowe, DuBois, Melville, as well as those whose influence has faded, such as Longfellow, Lydia Huntley Sigourney, John Pierpont, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and African American writers whose work has been recovered in recent decades, such as James M. Whitfield, William Wells Brown, George Moses Horton, and Frances E. W. Harper.

The poetry of the transatlantic abolitionist movement was a powerful alliance across racial and religious boundaries, challenging the demarcation in literary studies between cultural and aesthetic approaches. It is particularly relevant today, as it speaks to a broad cross-section of society with moral authority

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781640140691