Excerpt from Modern American and British Poetry

Since the chronological arrangement is, in spite of cer tain disadvantages, the only logical one, an arbitrary boundary has been fixed. Conceiving modern British poetry to begin after the fertile tennyson-browning rossetti-swinburne epoch, the year 1840 is made to act as dividing-line, any poet born before that date is ruthlessly excluded. In the case of American1 poetry, the line has been moved back ten years. Thus, by includ ing work of poets born in this country as early as 1830, a richer background has been given the poetry of our times, and, although some of the interval poets like Ald rich and Lanier could scarcely be considered modern, it is curious to see how wide and how completely the circle has swung since Walt Whitman startled the world with Leaves of Grass. The first part of this collection might well be called, American Poetry since'whitman for the poet who has often been called the godfather of the new generation ended one period and began another.

It is a happy circumstance that this volume should begin with the poetry of Emily Dickinson (born 1830) whose work, printed for the first time after her death, was unknown as late as 1890 and unnoticed until several years later. For hers was a forerunner of the new Spirit - free in expression, unhampered in choice of subject, keen in psychology - to which a countryful of writers has responded. NO longer confined to London, Boston or New York as literary centers, the impulse to create is everywhere. There is scarcely a state, barely a town ship that has not produced its local laureate.

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