Included in the anthology is newly researched biographical sketches of each poet, a year-by-year chronology of poets and poetry from 1800-1900, and extensive notes.

The first critical collection of its kind devoted solely to this subject, this Companion covers both well-known and lesser-known poets.

This collection makes the case for literary criticism as an informed, aggressive, personal, and often humorous response to writers and writing. An unrepentant academic, William Pritchard nonetheless finds himself looking vainly, in much current professional study of literature, for what he sees as criticism's central task. This involves, in part, an attentiveness to the performing voice of the novelist, poet, or essayist under discussion. To bring out that quality, the critic must exploit, with invention and intrepidity, his or her own responsive voice - must "talk back" to the work of art.

First Published in 2004. From Philip Freneau to Walt Whitman, Herman Melville to Trumbull Stickney, this collection of two volumes, selected by John Hollander, gives an insight into the artform during the nineteenth century. This collection is sorted by author with focus on American Indian Poetry, Folk Songs and Spirituals. An extensive list of works with attention to their chronology and editor notes on the texts within.

Freneau to Whitman.