In the long history of American literary scholarship, few figures embody the transition from nineteenth-century genteel letters to modern academic criticism as thoroughly as Henry Augustin Beers. Born on July 2, 1847, in Buffalo, New York, and dying on September 7, 1926, in New Haven, Connecticut, Beers spent nearly his entire adult life at Yale University, where his slight frame became a beloved fixture on campus fo…
“He made the English language an organ of expression unexcelled in the history of literature. Yet he is not an English poet simply, but a world-poet.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
Anne Spencer was a poet whose verses captured the quiet fire of resilience, the lush beauty of the natural world, and the sharp edges of racial and gender injustice in early twentieth-century America. Born in the rolling farmlands of Virginia at a time when the shadow of slavery still lingered over Black lives, she forged a literary legacy that transcended her geographic isolation from the bustling heart of the Harle…
“I write about some of the things I love. But have no civilized articulation for the things I hate.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Longing
