I fully agree that, after Dickinson and Whitman, 19th century American poetry is largely a wasteland. I found Tuckerman while reading the Library of America's 2-volume collection of that century, and he stood out as pretty clearly the best of the rest.
I can see where "stilted" comes from, but I don't really share the sense. He's writing dense, thick poetry from a dense, thick fog of mind—the language suits his purposes. One man's judgment, of course.
Trumbull Stickney was quite fine as well—Stickney and Tuckerman both clearly outclass Longfellow, Poe, and all the other 19th century Americans I'd heard of going into the anthology.
|