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Focusing on literary and popular poets, as well as work by women, African Americans, and soldiers, this book considers how writers used poetry to articulate their relationships to family, community, and nation during the Civil War. Faith Barrett suggests that the nationalist “we” and the personal “I” are not opposed in this era; rather they are related positions on a continuous spectrum of potential stances. For example, while Julia Ward Howe became famous for her “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” in an earlier poem titled “The Lyric I” she struggles to negotiate her relationship to domestic, aesthetic, and political stances. Barrett makes the case that Americans on both sides of the struggle believed that poetry had an important role to play in defining national identity. She considers how poets created a platform from which they could speak both to their own families and local communities and to the nations of the Confederacy, the Union, and the United States. She argues that the Civil War changed the way American poets addressed their audiences and that Civil War poetry changed the way Americans understood their relationship to the nation.

Although it isn’t the official national anthem, America may be the most important and interesting patriotic song in our national repertoire. Sweet Freedom’s Song: “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and Democracy in America is a celebration and critical exploration of the complicated musical, cultural and political roles played by the song America over the past 250 years. Popularly known as My Country ‘Tis of Thee and as God Save the King/Queen before that this tune has a history as rich as the country it extols. In Sweet Freedom’s Song, Robert Branham and Stephen Hartnett chronicle this song’s many incarnations over the centuries. Colonial Americans, Southern slave owners, abolitionists, temperance campaigners and labor leaders, among others, appropriated and adapted the tune to create anthems for their own struggles. Because the song has been invoked by nearly every grassroots movement in American history, the story of America offers important insights on the story of democracy in the United States. An examination of America as a historical artifact and cultural text, Sweet Freedoms Song is a reflection of the rebellious spirit of Americans throughout our nations history. The late Robert James Branham and his collaborator, Stephen Hartnett, have produced a thoroughly-researched, delightfully written book that will appeal to scholars and patriots of all stripes.

In this surprisingly timely book, Stephen Mack examines Whitman's particular and fascinating brand of patriotism: his far-reaching vision of democracy. For Whitman, loyalty to America was loyalty to democracy. Since the idea that democracy is not just a political process but a social and cultural process as well is associated with American pragmatism, Mack relies on the pragmatic tradition of Emerson, James, Dewey, Mead, and Rorty to demonstrate the ways in which Whitman resides in this tradition. Mack analyzes Whitman's democratic vision both in its parts and as a whole; he also describes the ways in which Whitman's vision evolved throughout his career. He argues that Whitman initially viewed democratic values such as individual liberty and democratic processes such as collective decision-making as fundamental, organic principles, free and unregulated. But throughout the 1860s and 1870s Whitman came to realize that democracy entailed processes of human agency that are more deliberate and less natural-that human destiny is largely the product of human effort, and a truly humane society can be shaped only by intelligent human efforts to govern the forces that would otherwise govern us. Mack describes the foundation of Whitman's democracy as found in the 1855 and 1856 editions ofLeaves of Grass,examines the ways in which Whitman's 1859 sexual crisis and the Civil War transformed his democratic poetics in \"Sea-Drift,\" \"Calamus,\"Drum-Taps,andSequel to Drum-Taps,and explores Whitman's mature vision inDemocratic Vistas, concluding with observations on its moral and political implications today. Throughout, he illuminates Whitman's great achievement-learning that a full appreciation for the complexities of human life meant understanding that liberty can take many different and conflicting forms-and allows us to contemplate the relevance of that achievement at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

In this surprisingly timely book, Stephen Mack examines Whitman's particular and fascinating brand of patriotism: his far-reaching vision of democracy. For Whitman, loyalty to America was loyalty to democracy. Since the idea that democracy is not just a political process but a social and cultural process as well is associated with American pragmatism, Mack relies on the pragmatic tradition of Emerson, James, Dewey, Mead, and Rorty to demonstrate the ways in which Whitman resides in this tradition.Mack analyzes Whitman's democratic vision both in its parts and as a whole; he also describes the ways in which Whitman's vision evolved throughout his career. He argues that Whitman initially viewed democratic values such as individual liberty and democratic processes such as collective decision-making as fundamental, organic principles, free and unregulated. But throughout the 1860s and 1870s Whitman came to realize that democracy entailed processes of human agency that are more deliberate and less natural-that human destiny is largely the product of human effort, and a truly humane society can be shaped only by intelligent human efforts to govern the forces that would otherwise govern us.Mack describes the foundation of Whitman's democracy as found in the 1855 and 1856 editions of Leaves of Grass, examines the ways in which Whitman's 1859 sexual crisis and the Civil War transformed his democratic poetics in Sea-Drift, Calamus, Drum-Taps,and Sequel to Drum-Taps, and explores Whitman's mature vision in Democratic Vistas, concluding with observations on its moral and political implications today. Throughout, he illuminates Whitman's great achievement-learning that a full appreciation for the complexities of human life meant understanding that liberty can take many different and conflicting forms-and allows us to contemplate the relevance of that achievement at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

In the immediate aftermath of the Haitian earthquake Junot Díaz was not the only one who hoped that the earthquake could turn into an opportunity to improve the relationship between the two nations which share Hispaniola.¹ Many writers and artists tried to play a central role to support and promote solidarity and the kind of cultural exchange which could make a difference: for example, in July 2011 theCaravan Cultural de la Isla/Karavan Kulturèl Zilesaw more than a hundred artists from both Haiti and the Dominican Republic travelling from Santo Domingo to Jimaní and performing in Oeste, Baní, Cabral,

So far, this book has considered the physical political intervention of women and the political significance of their family networks, everyday lives and private correspondence. This chapter will study selected works of two of the earliest published women writers in post-independence Spanish America, Josefa Acevedo (b. 1803) and Mercedes Marín (b. 1804). The focus shifts to the literary cultural sphere of theletrados.Both writers are neglected and are thus poorly recognised. As women, they were hindered by negative symbolic capital, a direct consequence of the gendering of the socially female (Moi 1999: 291) (see Chapter 1). However, both were

In the previous chapter, we have seen how Charlotte Smith used analogy and her novelistic imagination to connect her experience to the lives of men in war. Unlike Smith, a number of major British male authors of the time had direct experience of military organizations, if not of warfare itself. Beset by debts and misery in December 1793, Samuel Taylor Coleridge accepted six and a half guineas to become a volunteer private in the 15th Light Dragoons (Holmes 1990: 53).¹ Walter Scott helped to form the Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Light Dragoons in 1797. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her journal that

American entertainers and politicians alike maintained an uneasy neutrality following the outbreak of the war in August 1914. Al Jolson was already showcasing the popular English wartime song “Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers” inDancing Aroundwhen it opened on 10 October 1914 at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. Another of the rousing songs from the same season was Blanche Merrill’s “We Take Our Hats Off to You, Mr. Wilson.” Popularized by both Nora Bayes and Fanny Brice, it took on a new meaning as Wilson campaigned for reelection in 1916 on the slogan that he had