Research Project

American Poetry Anthologies, 1910-1940: Modernism and the Canon

Abstract

Principle Investigator: Karen Leick, Department of English
Collaborator: Brianna Wright, student, English Major

The purpose of this Digital Humanities project is to discover American poets who were well-known in the modernist period (1910 – 1940) but have been forgotten. This project will accurately show trends and developments in modern American poetry using data from popular anthologies published in the period.

There was a network of American middle-brow poets in the early 20th century who had successful careers, thanks to a periodical culture that valued and promoted poetry. These poets were often anthologized and were considered household names but are now mostly unknown to academics. When the Norton Anthologies began appearing in the 1960s, a group of canonical poets was established and began to dominate course syllabi, but before that time there was a much larger and more diverse group of poets who had successful careers and influence.

We are compiling a database that includes the names of all poems published in prominent American poetry anthologies from 1910 to 1950. Currently, we plan to include anthologies edited by Louis Untermeyer, Harriet Monroe, Jessie Rittenhouse, and William Stanley Braithwaite (each published multiple anthologies in this period). In addition to the names of every poem published in these anthologies, the database also contains information about each poet: gender, race, sexual orientation, birth and death dates/location. We are using this data to create interactive graphs, charts and maps that can be used to compare these categories and show trends over time.

Many Digital Humanities tools such as Flourish and Omeka now enable scholars to show trends in visually exciting ways. In addition to producing our own visualizations, other scholars will be able make their own charts and graphs. Users may compare the productivity of individual writers, sort writers by categories (such as gender, race, sexuality, location), and compare the visibility of poets in specific years or decades.

Another goal of the project is to show the significance of poets who had success in the modernist period but have been forgotten. Karen Leick has begun to research one poet, Mary Carolyn Davies, whose work appears in many of the anthologies used in the project. She will visit the Davies archive at the University of Oregon in summer 2021. Undergraduate Brianna Wright received a LASURI grant to work on this project for the academic year 2020-21. This material has inspired her own archival research; she will visit the Harriet Monroe papers at the University of Chicago in spring 2021.

Thanks to Janet Swatscheno, Co-Director of the Digital Humanities Initiative, for using our data to create this visualization using Flourish. It shows the relationship between poems published in three anthologies published by Harriet Monroe: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/5114333/