Sunday, February 14, 2016


Battle Pieces   Herman Melville
After people stopped reading Melville’s increasingly difficult novels, he decided to become a poet. So he produced, among others, these brilliant, highly-structured, and sometimes difficult poems based on Civil War battles (Antietam, Vicksburg, The Wilderness, etc.). Just as much of an achievement as his novels, they help prove Melville’s literary genius. Stylistically, pretty much the opposite of Whitman’s. Very good.

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