John Greenleaf Whittier has been called the "Quaker Poet." He's famous for "Snow-Bound," which sold more than 20,000 copies in one month. With this collection, Editor Brenda Wineapple reminds us of the poetry and the life of John Greenleaf Whittier. "Revisited now," the editor sees Whittier as "fresh, honest even flinty and practical."
Wineapple says, "His diction is easy, his detail rich and unassuming, his emotion deep. And the shale of his New England landscape reaches outward, promising not relief from pain but a glimpse of a better, larger world."
From humble beginnings--born on a farm, with few books at home--Whittier would become a writer and editor. Stirring up controversy seemed to be one of Whittier's specialties, and he didn't care who agreed with him. As Wineapple says: "He intended to inspire, not to belittle, and in the manner of abolition he aimed literally to create an audience." Eventually he contributed a great deal to the whirlwind of abolitionist voices.
From humble beginnings--born on a farm, with few books at home--Whittier would become a writer and editor. Stirring up controversy seemed to be one of Whittier's specialties, and he didn't care who agreed with him. As Wineapple says: "He intended to inspire, not to belittle, and in the manner of abolition he aimed literally to create an audience." Eventually he contributed a great deal to the whirlwind of abolitionist voices.
In Chains and In Sorrow
Whittier wasn't the only writer who was using the pen to dramatize the experiences of American slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe was perhaps the most famous example of a writer who used her talent to stir up public opinion about the issue of slavery. As a Quaker Whittier strongly opposed the institution of slavery. He once said: "I hate slavery in all its forms, degrees and influences and I deem myself bound by the highest moral and political obligations not to let that sentiment of hate lie dormant and smoldering in my own breast, but to give it free vent and let it blaze forth, that it may kindle equal ardor through the whole sphere of my influence."With poems like "Toussaint l'Ouverture," "Song of Slaves in the Desert," "The Hunters of Men," "The Panorama," and "The Farewell," Whittier gave vent to his anger, and tore at the heartstrings of his readers. He was there every step of the way, giving himself and his words over wholeheartedly to the cause. For his poetics, Whittier was pelted with rotten eggs and sticks. His office in Pennsylvania was later burned and sacked; and the mob shouted, "Hang Whittier."
In "Toussaint l'Ouverture," which is about the bloody slave uprising in 1794, Whittier writes about the "blood-red sky," and the nobleness of the slave's heart. Then, in "The Farewell," we hear a mother's sobbing line: "Gone, gone--sold and gone, / The the rice-swamp dank and lone. / From Virginia's hill and waters,-- / Woe is me, my stolen daughters!"
The Lonely and Alone
Whittier knew the "desert spaces," the loneliness, and the "loss of all familiar things." He once told a friend: "The loneliness of life, under its best circumstances, becomes, at times, appalling to contemplate."Whittier once told a friend, "No one human soul ever fully knew another; and an infinite sigh for sympathy is perpetually going up from the heart of humanity." And, then he writes: "Soon or late to all our dwellings come the specters of the mind, / Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the darkness undefined; / Round us throng the grim projections of the heart and of the brain, / And our pride of strength is weakness, and the cunning hand is vain. / This is a poet who knows of desert spaces."
But, with his simple, but distinctive, voice, in "Snow-Bound," "The Bare-foot Boy," and other poems, he looks back, yearning for a the past and childhood. Perhaps, he's searching for a simpler time, or a "clean, well-lighted place," where his imagination can run free.
