Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier Reviews

• 
  Kristi

  Note: I did not read this volume, but a selection of poems by John Greenleaf Whitter: "Ichabod," "Massachusetts To Virginia," "Maud Muller," "Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl," and "Telling the Bees."
  
  The opposition to slavery is a recurrent theme in Whitter's poetry. "Ichabod" is a biblical allusion to the disgrace of statesman Daniel Webster following his support of the Fugitive Slave Law, requiring citizens of Massachusetts to actively enforce the laws of slavery within the boundaries of their free state. Whitter urges enraged citizens to pity and mourn Webster, as a man who has parted with his soul, and leave wrath to God's judgement of Webster.
  
  In "Massachusetts To Virginia," Whitter assures the South that the North is not waging an offensive war against its southern brothers. It is the South who threatens the North. Whitter uses evocative nature metaphors to illustrate the hearty nature of New Englanders in the face of Southern aggression. He makes repetitive allusions to the Revolutionary legacy and the patriotic familial relation between the states. Massachusetts, he argues, is faithful to the Revolutionary principle of liberty, which is violated by the Fugitive Slave Law. Although from Puritan heritage, he warns that the citizens of Massachusetts will not passionately submit to to being made slavery's implement. Ignoring the role of northern states in the slave trade, Whitter places the burden of slavery on the Southern conscious, as a condition self-created, which the northern states have no responsibility to uphold. He considers slavery a curse on the land , blasphemy, and against natural feeling. Intertwining Revolutionary legacy with religious sanctity, Whitter depicts the state of Massachusetts naturally untied by divine moral principle and patriotic duty. He ends the poem declaring that there is no slave on Massachusetts land.
  
  "Maud Muller" has a different tone. This is a poem of regret and imagining an alternative life. Whitter laments the injustice of social boundaries and prejudice, which create marriages that enslave and deaden the soul.
  
  "Snow-Bound: A Winter's Idyl" is also a nostalgic poem. The poem depicts a snowstorm that is at once wondrous, transformative, and foreign. The snow storm transforms the landscape into a place unrecognizable, described most accurately in exotic metaphors. It does not belong to the family, as the hearth fire does. Nature's transcendent signs are undecipherable miracles, and the family is isolated by the snow. Yet, the family is not a paralyzed victim of the storm. They venture out into the snow and life continues. The poem celebrates the strength and unity of the family. Still there is a sense of loss at the center of the poem, which Whitter terms "a loss in all familiar things," possibly to be reclaimed in the resolution of the Civil War. The poem may be read as a nostalgia for the innocence of youth when the national family and Whitter's own was together, with the snowstorm foreshadowing the future political turmoil, as well as the separation of death that inevitably marks the passage of life. In Whitter's view, answers to the mysteries of life are unknowable, but external life is not what matters. Life's meaning is found within - within the home, the hearth, the family, the heart.
  
  There is an immediacy at the start of "Telling the Bees." The reader is "here," "can see," "there is the house." Initially the narrator insists that this place is near timeless and unchanged, emphasizing the "same"-ness of the place. This may strike the reader, as it did me, as artificial and forced. Halfway through the poem the narrator informs the reader that "since we parted, a month has passed,," and we become aware that despite appearances at least one thing has changed. Whitter may be evoking the appearance of the life going on despite personal death. The bees may be an allusion to the business of American laborers, mourning for a national grief.
• 
  Lori

  My latest addition to my collection is The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1876.
  
  While the cover of my book is loose and the first few pages are well worn, the content itself is an interesting read, and I appreciate the historical notes in the back of the book.
• 
  Dawn

  History in poetry, as well as beauty, etc.
• 
  Adriana

  Another must have for your home library!