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quintusmarcus's review
5.0
Remarkable poem (which the Wall Street Journal describes as "a half-forgotten piece of middlebrow literature whose own legacy is as ambiguous, in its way, as Brown's."), that tells the Civil War story through the eyes of both Northern and Southern characters, with vignettes of the major historical players.Almost as long as the Iliad, and a little longer than the Odyssey, the term epic, though rejected by Benet, certainly fits. Panoramic in scope, Benet portrays the sufferings of all the players with fairness and sympathy. Very rich and evocative writing, full of details of the landscape of both North and South, and much colorful writing about the seasons:
Here was October, here
Was ruddy October, the old harvester,
Wrapped like a beggared sachem in a coat
Of tattered tanager and partridge feathers,
Scattering jack-o-lanterns everywhere
To give the field-mice pumpkin colored moons.
(Book 1)
But fall in the South:
Fall of the quail and the firefly-glows
And the pot-pourri of the rambler-rose
Fall that brings no promise of snows...
I absolutely loved the work. The poem possesses a nobility that is quite uncommon in American literature--an elevated tone that is deeply appropriate. The poem won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, but seems to have completely dropped off the radar of the American community of letters. I can't understand why: the poem is completely approachable, engagingly written, and the subject matter is of immense interest to the reading public. It's long overdue for critical re-appraisal. Thanks, by the way, to Bruce Lambert for bringing this to my attention
Here was October, here
Was ruddy October, the old harvester,
Wrapped like a beggared sachem in a coat
Of tattered tanager and partridge feathers,
Scattering jack-o-lanterns everywhere
To give the field-mice pumpkin colored moons.
(Book 1)
But fall in the South:
Fall of the quail and the firefly-glows
And the pot-pourri of the rambler-rose
Fall that brings no promise of snows...
I absolutely loved the work. The poem possesses a nobility that is quite uncommon in American literature--an elevated tone that is deeply appropriate. The poem won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, but seems to have completely dropped off the radar of the American community of letters. I can't understand why: the poem is completely approachable, engagingly written, and the subject matter is of immense interest to the reading public. It's long overdue for critical re-appraisal. Thanks, by the way, to Bruce Lambert for bringing this to my attention
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