How the legacy of the Civil War-as presented by writers, poets, and artists of the time-has shaped American visions of democracy
In Haunted by the Civil War, Shirley Samuels explores the work of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others to investigate the long cultural shadow of America's cataclysmic sundering. Juxtaposing these texts with images-ranging from paintings by Winslow Homer to newspaper and magazine illustrations of political controversies-Samuels argues that the Civil War still haunts our attitudes toward democracy. The recent toppling of Confederate monuments, the continuing protests over racial and sexual discrimination, immigration, and Indigenous land rights: each of these forms part of the war's legacy.
Examining the fraught deliberations about an ideal American democracy in the early republic, Samuels turns to the language of sensation in the poetry of Melville, Dickinson, and Whitman alongside Lincoln's relation to the poetic and visual culture of his time. She considers the haunted afterlives of war in the work of Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as in popular nineteenth-century inspirational fiction. And she investigates the literature of men at sea (and on rivers, enabling both connection and escape), as seen in Melville and Mark Twain, while examining women's wartime work and experience, in writings by Gilman and Frances Harper.
Why does the Civil War still haunt us? To find the answer, Samuels identifies not only the ghosts that cannot rest but also the cultural practices that name them.
| ISBN: | 9780691248578 |
| Publication date: | 23rd December 2025 |
| Author: | Shirley Samuels |
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 232 pages |
| Genres: |
Literature: history and criticism Literary studies: general |
How the legacy of the Civil War-as presented by writers, poets, and artists of the time-has shaped American visions of democracy
In Haunted by the Civil War, Shirley Samuels explores the work of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others to investigate the long cultural shadow of America's cataclysmic sundering. Juxtaposing these texts with images-ranging from paintings by Winslow Homer to newspaper and magazine illustrations of political controversies-Samuels argues that the Civil War still haunts our attitudes toward democracy. The recent toppling of Confederate monuments, the continuing protests over racial and sexual discrimination, immigration, and Indigenous land rights: each of these forms part of the war's legacy.
Examining the fraught deliberations about an ideal American democracy in the early republic, Samuels turns to the language of sensation in the poetry of Melville, Dickinson, and Whitman alongside Lincoln's relation to the poetic and visual culture of his time. She considers the haunted afterlives of war in the work of Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as in popular nineteenth-century inspirational fiction. And she investigates the literature of men at sea (and on rivers, enabling both connection and escape), as seen in Melville and Mark Twain, while examining women's wartime work and experience, in writings by Gilman and Frances Harper.
Why does the Civil War still haunt us? To find the answer, Samuels identifies not only the ghosts that cannot rest but also the cultural practices that name them.
Haunted by the Civil War features in the following genres: Literature: history and criticism, Literary studies: general
Haunted by the Civil War is available in Hardback
Haunted by the Civil War was written by Shirley Samuels and published by Princeton University Press
Haunted by the Civil War has 232 pages
£25.20