The Rising Poems of America:
Nationalistic Origins of the American Sonnet
Nationalistic Origins of the American Sonnet
The sonnet’s historical roots in European poetic tradition could have been a harbinger against its adaptation by American poets in the early American Republic. Yet some poets used the form, engaging with it by crafting the beginning of a long tradition in American letters that embraced the sonnet in the expansion of a developing American literature. As noted by George Sterner, Colonel David Humphreys is considered America’s first sonneteer with his “Addressed to my friends at Yale College, on Leaving them to Join the Army” (Sterner XI, 2) which was apparently composed in 1776 but was published as late as 1804 in Humphreys’ Miscellaneous Works. While most American sonnet writers of the 18th and 19th centuries focused on traditional sonnet themes, including the metaphysical, the religious, and nature, some American poets used the form to express American nationalism in the nascent nation. This essay argues that the roots of the American sonnet tradition lie in the sonnets of Colonel David Humphreys of the late 18th and early 19th centuries not simply because he has been identified as America’s first sonneteer, but rather because his sonnets focus predominantly on nationalistic themes, something that curiously did not take hold in the majority of later American sonnets by other poets in the 19th century onward.
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Works Consulted:
Humphreys, David. The Miscellaneous Works. New York, 1804. Print.
Regan, Stephen. The Sonnet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Print.
Sterner, Lewis G. The Sonnet in American Literature. Philadelphia, Pa, 1930. Print.
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Works Consulted:
Humphreys, David. The Miscellaneous Works. New York, 1804. Print.
Regan, Stephen. The Sonnet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Print.
Sterner, Lewis G. The Sonnet in American Literature. Philadelphia, Pa, 1930. Print.
Benjamin Crawford earned his doctorate in English in 2016 from the University of Alabama. Benjamin is an independent scholar of early American literature with interests in the environment and poetry. He currently teaches English abroad.