Download or read book Whitman's & Dickinson's Contemporaries written by Robert A. Bain and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were not the poetic stars of their day; only a few friends knew that Dickinson wrote, and Whitman's following was minuscule, if influential. But the contemporaries who eclipsed these major poets now have largely disappeared from our literary landscape. In this distinctive anthology, Robert Bain gathers together thirteen other scholars to re-present the poetry of these former luminaries, allowing readers to rediscover them, reconstruct the poetic contexts of their age, and better understand why Whitman and Dickinson now overshadow other poets of their time. Arranged chronologically according to the birth dates of the poets, this anthology introduces each poet's work, providing biographical information and discussing the major forms and themes of the work. Each introduction places the poet in a literary and historical context with Whitman and Dickinson and provides a bibliography of secondary sources. This remarkable book recovers a part of our literary heritage that has been lost.