Publication Date
1963
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
First Advisor
Rodney, Robert M.||Baker, Orville
Degree Name
M.A. (Master of Arts)
Legacy Department
Department of English
LCSH
Sandburg; Carl; 1878-1967
Abstract
The criticism of Carl Sandburg's poetry by three contemporary critics is examined by the writer of this paper in the light of the standards set by the leaders of the "New Poetry" movement which began in 1910, and by the poetic theory of Keats and Coleridge, who are literary forebears of the movement. Stuart Sherman, a traditional critic, considers Sandburg's poetry good when like Whitman, bad when like the Imagists, but always insincere because not consistent. Carl Van Boren analyses Sandburg's poetry seeking to find its interior pattern. He finds rapture and irony and tenderness in it and calls Sandburg an artist and a thinker. Michael Yatron relates Sandburg to the political Populist group of the end of the nineteenth century, says the poetry is journalistic propaganda in the cause of this party's ideals, and that its literary value is low. Yatron says the poetry will not last and that it is lacking in intellectual rigor, poetic diction, clear characterization, and universality. By explicating four poems, the writer of this paper seeks to point out that the poems have form, prosodic elements, modern poetic diction, evolutionary imagery, universal symbol, and an eschatological view. It is the stand taken by this writer that the Sandburg poetry is the product of art, that it has beauty, dignity, universality, poetic concept, evidence of passion and poetic skill, and that it will endure as literature.
Recommended Citation
Carter, Charlotte Radsliff, "Carl Sandburg and the critics : the incompleteness of contemporaneous views" (1963). Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations. 1696.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-thesesdissertations/1696
Extent
102 pages, 3 unnumbered pages
Language
eng
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.
Media Type
Text
Comments
Includes bibliographical references.