Tag Archives: Civil War

U.S. Is Still Fighting the Civil War

By Robin Bates | Published: October 16, 2018

Michael Shaara’s “Killer Angels” has me thinking that a version of the Civil War is still on-going.

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Poetry Helped Feed Robert E. Lee Myth

By Robin Bates | Published: August 15, 2017

Herman Melville and Julie Ward Howe, although anti-slavery, unfortunately wrote poems which helped mythologize Robert E. Lee, whose statues have become symbols of white supremacy. And indeed, Lee was a white supremacist.

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Whitman, Melville & Abolitionism

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2015

Walt Whitman and Herman Melville’s revolutionary visions of egalitarian societies shaped how Abolitionists thought about America’s potential.

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Whitman’s Poem a Lesson for War Hawks

By Robin Bates | Published: April 9, 2015

In “The Wound-Binder,” Walt Whitman refuses to glorify war and only shows its bloody aftermath–a good thing to remember on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s final day.

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Lit’s Contribution to the Civil War

By Robin Bates | Published: April 15, 2014

If the Civil War was brought on by a combination of pity and politics, literature helped build the case for pity.

Posted in Douglass (Frederick), Jacobs (Harriet), Stowe (Harriet Beecher) | Also tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Civil War Was Fueled by Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: January 4, 2013

Scholar Faith Barrett shows how the War between the States was a “poetry fueled war.”

Posted in Howe (Julie Ward), Stowe (Harriet Beecher) | Also tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

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