How would you name the topics of each of the first five groups of Civil War poems assigned this week?

Write a minimum of 200 words in response to the following:

1) How would you name the topics of each of the first five groups of Civil War poems assigned this week?

Each topic-name (one for each group) must cover all poems in the group, but must be specific enough that it cannot apply to another one of the groups. Your topic-names can be phrases; they probably can’t be single words. (The topic is simply the subject matter, not the message about that subject.)

2) Within any ONE of the topic groups, 1-5, briefly state the central message of each poem about its topic.

3) How are the Emily Dickinson poems assigned this week like and unlike the others? Briefly discuss any two of her poems.

The pdf at the bottom of this page contains a set of poems written by various people–some famous, some not–during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Before that is a list of the poems’ authors and titles.

Group 1:

Anonymous, “A Southern Scene,” pp 2-4

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Boston Hymn,” 5-7

Group 2:

Phoebe Cary, “Ready,” 8-9

‘Miles O’Reilly’ (Charles Graham Halpine), “Sambo’s Right To Be Kilt,” 10-11

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “Lines to Miles O’Reiley,” 12-13

Group 3:

Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Brother Jonathan’s Lament for Sister Caroline,” 14-15

Ellen Key Blunt, “The Southern Cross,” 16-17

Group 4:

Herman Melville, “Shiloh,” 18-19

J. Augustine Signiago, “On the Heights of Mission Ridge,” 20

Ellen Flagg, “Death the Peacemaker,” 21-23

Group 5:

Julia L. Keyes, “Only One Killed,” 24-25

Walt Whitman, “Come Up from the Fields Father,” 26-27

Group ED:

Emily Dickinson, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” 28

Dickinson, “The name – of it – is ‘Autumn’ -,” 28

Dickinson, “He fought like those Who’ve nought to lose,” 28-29

Dickinson, “When I was small, a Woman died,” 29

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