More Poetry Than America Could Shake a Stick At

Goodness, but that's a lot of poetry; practically every major American poet from the early 20th century and some going on into the later half, too. From the sentimental, sometimes maudlin homespun poetry of Robert Frost to the modernist styling of T.S. Eliot and Stevens, all the way to the bizarre, clipped and frenetic works of E.E. Cumming, there's no doubt that this week's studies examined the width and breadth of American poetry and styles. Most interesting to note, though, is the debt that these poets owe their forebears (no doubt this is by design).

For in the works of these poets, especially in their contrasts one with the other, we can see that there is a distinct shift from the more traditional, Eurpoean classical styles to a Modernist, America style. But without the knowledge we have of Dickinson, Whitman and others, we would not be so well aware of just where this particularly American tradition first arises. No doubt these two giants' influence had much to do with the development of their torchbearers' work; the similarities in style between Stevens and Dickinson, for instance, are so close as to be identical in some instances. This survey of development in American literature has always been one of the most interesting parts of this curriculum, and nowhere more than here, where the juxtaposition of old-fashioned poets of the new age and the avant garde poets of said age reveals the debt they both owe to their literary ancestors.