William Jolliff, Professor of English at George Fox University, has selected 55 of John Greenleaf Whittier's more than 500 poems with the intention of turning Quaker (and other) readers into Whittier fans. His guiding focus for this edition is readability by contemporaries. A biographical and critical introduction and the identification of themes in introductions to each section are important guides. William Jolliff's brief introductions to the poems themselves give specific historical background and interpretive help when necessary. Includes Snow-Bound, Ichabod, Telling the Bees, The Barefoot Boy, Skipper Ireson's Ride, and In the Old South.
1807-1892
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
Although he received little formal education, he was an avid reader who studied his father's six books on Quakerism until their teachings became the foundation of his ideology. Whittier was heavily influenced by the doctrines of his religion, particularly its stress on humanitarianism, compassion, and social responsibility.
Whittier produced two collections of antislavery poetry: Poems Written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between 1830 and 1838 and Voices of Freedom (1846). He was an elector in the presidential election of 1860 and of 1864, voting for Abraham Lincoln both times.
The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 ended both slavery and his public cause, so Whittier turned to other forms of poetry for the remainder of his life.
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