Introduction (Critical Survey of Poetry: Topical Essays)  The
literary nineteenth century is commonly divided into periods or
phases, more or less arbitrarily. There was clearly a Romantic
period in England from about 1786 to 1832, followed by a more
sedate Victorian reaction that itself began to disintegrate
after 1860. American literature remained minor and derivative
until about 1820, when William Cullen Bryant emerged. While the
1830’s were comparable on both sides of the Atlantic, with
significant interaction, Romanticism lasted longer in America—to
which it was more applicable. The traumatic American Civil War
of 1861 to 1865, however, soon drew American letters toward the
increasing pessimism already common in England. During the last
third of the nineteenth century, British and American literature
were widely separate, and the uniqueness of American writers was
generally acknowledged. Nevertheless, the two literatures were
deeply interdependent at the beginning of the century, with
Britain’s dominatin