A CENTURY OF AMERICAN POETRY.

AN "American Anthology" appearing just at the close of the century, and representing in well-chosen selections the whole development of poetry in America, from the first matin song of Philip Freneau to the many-voiced utterances of the latest generation, affords the reviewer the opportunity of considering the results of our first hundred years of singing, as respecting both the quality of individual writers and the general character and tendency of American poetry.

Before commencing our survey, a word of appreciation is due Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, the compiler of this "Anthology," who seems fitted, above all men of this generation, for the task of selecting and organizing the literary materials of our people. Born in 1833, and beginning his own career as a man of letters at the halfcentury mark, he has been intimately identified with the progress of American literature for full fifty years. As a poet in his prime he belonged to a period of transition, being in the rear guard of that grand army of poets that held in New England for half a century the bulwarks of idealism; and, living on into new conditions, beholding other manners, other men, he has marched with the more strenuous volunteer forces that have gone forth for other issues, though, perhaps, never quite able to comprehend the aims of the foremost. It happens that his own contribution to the "Anthology" occupies almost the central pages of the volume, and this medial position is really indicative of his critical function as writer and reconciler.

As a critic his theory is eclectic; and in practice he has been catholic and generous, never exclusively academic nor uncritically popular. An older man, like Lowell, would have been more perplexed than he by the new motives that have arisen in the consciousness of recent writers. If Lowell failed to understand his own neighbor, Thoreau, untamable and unreducible though he undoubtedly was, how hardly would western "rough writers" fare at his hands!

A younger man, like Garland, fighting for his life against

the intrenched traditions, would be more tempted to make light of Longfellow as one of his company of "crumbling idols" and to ignore transcendentalism altogether. Mr. Stedman holds all in the balance, and is capable of entertaining the shy transcendentalism of Jones Very, the passionate patriotism of Lowell, the free spirit of Garland, the heroic realism of Whitman, the sweet lyricism of women, and the sensuous, fawn-like, graces of Hovey's "Songs of Vagabondia." Another compiler might make a different book, larger or smaller, but I do not think it would be so representative, so fair, or so just a book as this "Anthology."

One is first amazed at the number of those who can "turn the golden rhyme" with such effect as to be deemed worthy a place in a representative collection of American poetry-a few more than five hundred and seventy by actual count. It would be interesting to know how many poetasters were rejected by Mr. Stedman and returned to that "Chamber of Horrors," where, it is said, he kept the minor poets in close confinement — perhaps a hundred songsters more of lesser wing. Five or six or seven hundred, however, count but few among the multitude of our people in a century of time, and if Democracy means anything it must mean the opening of opportunity to every poetic soul. It must be easier for aspiration to come to fruition in America than elsewhere, and probably in the twentieth century twice or thrice as many poets will be credited as found reception in the nineteenth.

Naturally, nearly all of these many singers belong to the minor order of poets. If it required ten religious centuries to produce Dante, as Carlyle averred, it may take as many secular ones to create the genuine bard of Democracy. Yet, America is not wanting in accredited voices, both representative and prophetic. Of the five hundred and seventy-three, two are major poets measured by almost any standard. Edgar Poe and Walt Whitman are conspicuous among American poets for their striking originality and intensive force. They belong to the order of Makers: each created a distinctive style; each contributed something precious that had not been in the world before; each gave evidence of unique experiences and new heights of vision; each has had a world-wide influence, inspiring other poets and becoming the founder of a school - the one of Symbolism the other of Democratism. The record of Poe's influence belongs to the history of European literature, particularly to that of France. In the present volume he is quite without following-none has reached his

psychic altitudes-unless Hovey can be counted as a pupil; but Whitman's leadership is acknowledged by many of the younger writers in verses dedicated to his honor, in their employment of his free rhythms, and in their acceptance of his points of view. For Whitman, as Francis Howard Williams, a brother-poet, has said, "the day of deeper vision has begun.” It is not unlikely that the nineteenth century will come to be divided by the future historian of our literature into the Age of Poe and the Age of Whitman.

A group of hill-poets, as Grant Allen might call them — those who dwell upon the uplands of song-make up a considerable company. Bryant, Emerson, Lanier, Riley, and Emily Dickinson have significance hardly less than the major writers: Bryant for his discovery of the poetic value of the American landscape; Emerson for his quaint exposition of transcendental lore; Lanier for his wonderful music; Riley for his dramatization of commonplace lives; Emily Dickinson for her whimsical expression of profound thought. These poets also originated, and originality has value in literature far beyond volume or technical skill. The poets do not travail for the world's delight, but to bring forth thought and feeling after their kind.

A secondary group of the upland poets, less original and not so intensive, in some respects, but still of noble port and influence poets of the companionable order that connect lovingly with precedents and do not disturb our prejudices too harshly — would include, first of all, the pioneer, Philip Freneau, who, in his love of nature, in his patriotism, in his choice of the Indian and other native themes, was the teacher of the teachers. Dana, Pierpont, and Halleck were worthy predecessors of Bryant. Willis, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and Parsons lead in New England. New York has furnished Taylor, Stoddard, Stedman, Aldrich, Gilder, Winter, Woodberry, and Hovey. Chief among the Southerners are Simms, Hayne, Timrod, Cawein, Tabb, and Dunbar. From the West hail Piatt, Harte, Sill, Miller, Field, Cheney, Markham, Garland, Burton, and Moody. Foremost of the women are Louise Chandler Moulton, Helen Hunt Jackson, Emma Lazarus, Louise Guiney, Josephine Peabody, Edith Thomas, and Harriet Monroe. After them come the vast minor choir, whose voices are sweet but not strong, and yet who sound at moments some deeper notes.

It is well understood that any classification of American poets is at the present time wholly tentative. New types of genius have arisen who do not as yet fit into the traditional critical scheme. The

criticism in force to-day is largely derivative from New England. Not content with writing the greater volume of our verse, the Eastern men have imposed their critical judgments upon the people at large. Recently there have been signs of a shifting of emphasis. Longfellow is losing importance, and writers like Riley are gaining. In Longfellow's sense of poetry, Riley has not written poetry so much as in a new and more democratic sense he has depicted life. In some way life has got into a book, with its own rhythms and accents; and the book does not read like a book, but is known like a person. The humanization of poetry may count for more in the twentieth century than Longfellow's poetization of humanity. Mere volume will not matter, else were we now burdened with Barlow's "Columbiad " and Dwight's "Conquest of Canaan," whose vast bulks are now hopelessly laid aside. While there might not be much dispute concerning the thirty or forty more important names of the "Anthology,” there would be little agreement in the point of their valuation. But I think there can be little doubt that sincerity and truth to life will come to be considered as more significant than conventionalism and mere-literary excellence.

It appears that in America it is as great to be a woman-poet as to be a man-poet. This "Anthology" is distinguished among books of the sort by the number of its women; the Marys, Annes, and Harriets appearing more than a third as often as the Johns, the Jameses, and the Williams. Moreover, some of the most original and melodious verse in the collection is contributed by women. There is nothing quite so quaint in the volume as certain bits of Emily Dickinson's. Her note is so individual, her source of inspiration is so interior, that she seems out of place in an "Anthology." The crowd of reputables must surely stifle her. It is not possible for a woman so delicate and shy to sing in a choir. What right have even Timrod and Hayne, chivalric Southerners though they be, to precede her, or has Will Harney, though he has given up the glory of the world for a Florida orange grove, to stand in her shadow? So peculiar is her family strain that an equal originality emerges in the poems of a niece, Martha Gilbert Dickinson. The quality of distinction is recognized also in the glowing prophetic periods of Emma Lazarus, the highly sensitized lyrics of Helen Jackson, the playful fancies of Katherine Lee Bates, and the exquisitely finished verses of Edith Thomas.

The close association of literature and life in America makes pertinent at this point the mention of a problem that is perhaps more socio

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logical than strictly literary. It is seen that the women-poets jostle the men-poets in the perfect equality of the chronological scheme adopted for the volume. But their juxtaposition reveals clearly the inequality of men and women in respect to distinctive names. century ago the confusion of our present name-system would not have been noticed in an "Anthology;" but at a time when nearly as many women are rising to distinction as men, the necessity of a name that shall identify a woman writer permanently, whatever her matrimonial vicissitudes may be, occasions a serious sociological problem. A man-poet, once his name and writings are associated in the public mind, is known by his surname; but a woman-poet, whatever her eminence, unless she has decided to remain single, is compelled to pass under a pseudonym. A man's name is transferred from the person to his works; it becomes an impersonal symbol referring to a given poetical achievement. But a woman's names are only a record of her father and her husband or husbands, and seldom relate to her writings.

The maiden names of poets, Edith Thomas, Evaleen Stein, Emma Lazarus, Nora Perry, Harriet Monroe, are simple, dignified, and sufficient ones. Confusion begins with marriage. It does not often happen that poets are wedded like the Stoddards and the Piatts, and contribute to a common fame. More often the man is an outsider and does not deserve his literary celebrity. This comedy of names, always near to being a comedy of errors, was well brought out some years ago when the authorship of the ballad "Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," was brought into question. It was finally traced to Elizabeth Ann Chase Akers Allen, whose father's name was Chase, whose husbands were Akers and Allen, and whose pseudonym — if these disguises were not sufficient ! was "Florence Perry."

The adoption of a nom de plume for writers, as for actresses, is perhaps the most satisfactory solution of the difficulty. In a man's case a pseudonym is a too effective disguise; but for women this disguise is less objectionable than their other disguises. Ellen Louise Chandler Moulton, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Mary Elizabeth Prescott Spofford, and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz are hardly to be endured; but Mary Elizabeth Moore Hewitt Stebbins and Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson should be ruled out of the court of letters. Surely, our forefathers could not have contemplated the possibility of women's literary independence or that one day they should become heads of houses.