Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"
Battle Lines should be read by every scholar of nineteenth-century American literature and culture as well as by any interested reader who enjoys American poetry. The book packs a lot of information in relatively short compass and it is a jargon-free and non-technical joy to read. Richards has established a heretofore relatively neglected field in American literature that deserves further thoughtful and astute attention that she pioneers in her own work." *
American Literary Realism *
"
Battle Lines is exciting and groundbreaking. Eliza Richards argues that the poetry of the Civil War was distinctive for its intimate relationship to new, and newly networked, forms of media. Her ingenious interpretations show how the war's mediated events fundamentally shaped both the form and content of its poems." * Elizabeth Young, Mount Holyoke College *
"Eliza Richards has written a tight, elegant book that demonstrates how pervasively the poetry of the Civil War reflects on its technologically mediated conditions, composition, and circulation." * Mary Loeffelholz, Northeastern University *
"A prolific essayist, Richards has honed her ability to connect poems and the circumstances framing their creation to good effect…Richards deserves praise for teasing out in elegant fashion the impacts of the Civil War on American poetry and its production and consumption." * American Nineteenth Century Histoy *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. "How News Must Feel When Traveling"
Chapter 1. "Strange Analogies": Weathering the War
Chapter 2. The "Ghastly Harvest"
Chapter 3. "To Signalize the Hour": Memorialization and the Massachusetts 54th
Chapter 4. Poetry Under Siege: Charleston Harbor's Talking Guns
Chapter 5. Poetry at Sea: Naval Ballads and the Battle of Mobile Bay
Epilogue. Writing's Wars: Stephen Crane's Poetry and the Postbellum Turn to the Page
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
