. The Cambridge History of American Literature: Volume 4, Nineteenth-Century Poetry, 1800-1910. , Cambridge University Press, 2008.

The Cambridge History of American Literature addresses the broad spectrum of new and established directions in all branches of American writing and includes the work of scholars and critics who have shaped, and who continue to shape, what has become a major area of literary scholarship. The authors span three decades of achievement in American literary criticism, thereby speaking for both conti- nuity and change between generations of scholarship. Generously proportioned narratives allow at once for a broader vision and sweep of American literary history than has been possible previously. And while the voice of traditional criticism forms a background for these narratives, it joins forces with the diversity of interests that characterize contemporary