Poetry.
American poetry, the history of which spans more than 350 years, is notable for its variety, energy, contrarian tendencies, and feistiness. True, the earliest verse was imitative and derivative, displaying a heavy reliance on British prosody, diction, and verse forms (particularly pastorals, odes, elegies, epistles, and satires). By the nineteenth century, however, poets were expressing an emergent national identity and making significant strides toward liberating themselves from foreign models. By the twentieth century, American poetry commanded international attention and respect, for it had attained a high level of quality—indeed, had achieved parity among the world's poetries, including European poetry.... ...
Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
