A Companion to American Poetry. Группа авторов

Bercovitch notes that the motif of the sailing ship is commonly used in Puritan elegies to evoke the voyage to America (1975, p. 117).

      4 4. As an enslaved writer who later acquired freedom, Wheatley connected America’s oppression by England to slavery in “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth” (1773), in which she explains her cruel enslavement and asks, “And can I then but pray / Others may never feel tyrannic sway?” (lines 30–31).

      5 5. “Thanatopsis” was first published in The North American Review in 1817, but a revision published in 1821 replaces content added at the beginning by the editors of The North American Review with a new beginning to the poem in addition to other changes. This paper uses the revised 1821 edition.

      6 6. See Martin (1984, 2007, 2019).

      7 7. Year first published; year written unknown.

      8 8. This paper uses the revised poem as it appeared in 1881.

      9 9. See Mitford (1963) for a discussion about the increasingly elaborate and professionalized funeral in the twentieth century as well as the role of embalming.

      10 10. Around 675,000 Americans and 50,000,000 worldwide died during the 1918–1919 pandemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2018).

      11 11. First published in 1915; this paper uses the revised 1923 edition.

      12 12. Outka further discusses bodies, rebirth, and resurrection especially in regards to the 1918 pandemic in The Waste Land in the chapter “A Wasteland of Influenza” (2020, pp. 143–166). She remarks that “Eliot and his wife both personally felt caught in a perpetual living death in the pandemic/post-pandemic moment” (p. 157).

      13 13. Kami Fletcher has argued that twentieth-century African American undertakers were engaging in activism and suggests viewing “funerals [as] activist tools that proclaim three-dimensional personhood” (Fletcher/“Race & the Funeral Procession” 2018).

      14 14. Doctors worked to keep people alive for as long as possible even “under the most pessimistic circumstances, where death [seemed] certain” (Warner 1959, p. 375).

      15 15. The authorship is contested. The poem was published in December 1934 under the name Clare Harner, but research by Abigail Van Buren suggested that the poem was written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye, to whom it is now widely attributed.

      REFERENCES

      POEMS

      1 Aiken, C. (1916). Music I heard. In: The New Poetry: An Anthology, (ed. H. Monroeand A.C.Henderson). New York: Macmillan. 1917. Bartleby.com, 2002, [online], Available at https://www.bartleby.com/265/1.html#google_vignette. (accessed 10 June 2021).

      2 Bradstreet, A. (1678a). Before the birth of one of her children. In: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5e (ed. M. Ferguson, M.J. Salter, and J. Stallworthy), 284–285. New York and London: Norton. 2005.

      3 Bradstreet, A. (1678b). Contemplations. In: The Works of Anne Bradstreet, (ed. J.Hensley), 204–214. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP. 1967. HathiTrust.

      4 Bradstreet, A. (1867a). By night when others soundly slept. In: The Works of Anne Bradstreet, (ed. J. Hensley), 246. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP. 1967. HathiTrust.

      5 Bradstreet, A. (1867b). May 11, 1661. In: The Works of Anne Bradstreet, (ed. J. Hensley), 259–260. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP. 1967. HathiTrust.

      6 Bradstreet, A. (1867c). On my dear grandchild Simon Bradstreet, who died on 16 November, 1669, Being but a month, and one day old. In: The Works of Anne Bradstreet, (ed. J.Hensley), 237. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP. 1967. HathiTrust.

      7 Brooks, G. (1949). the rites for Cousin Vit. In: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5e (ed. M. Ferguson, M.J. Salter, and J. Stallworthy), 999. New York and London: Norton. 2005.

      8 Bryant, W.C. (1821). Thanatopsis. In: William Cullen Bryant: An American Voice, (ed. F.Gadoin conjunction with N.B.Stevens), 32–34. Hanover and London: University Press of New England. HathiTrust.

      9 Dickinson, E. (c. 1862). #465 [I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -]. In: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, (ed. T.H. Johnson), 223–224. New York: Little, Brown. 1960.

      10 Dickinson, E. (c. 1863). #677 [To be alive - is Power]. In: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, (ed. T.H.Johnson), 335–336. New York: Little, Brown. 1960.

      11 Dickinson, E. (1945). #1717 [Did life’s penurious length]. In: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, (ed. T.H.Johnson), 697. New York: Little, Brown. 1960.

      12 Eliot, T.S. (1922). The waste land. First edition. In: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5e (ed. M. Ferguson, M.J. Salter, and J. Stallworthy), 866–878. New York and London: Norton.

      13 Frye, M.E. (1932). Do not stand at my grave and weep. GoodReads, [online], Available at https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/294425-do-not-stand-at-my-grave-and-weep-i-am. (accessed 11 June 2021).

      14 Hughes, L. (1927). Song for a dark girl. In: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5e (ed. M. Ferguson, M.J. Salter, and J. Stallworthy), 914–915. New York and London: Norton. 2005.

      15 Hughes, L. (1928). Mazie dies alone in the city hospital. In: The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, (ed. A.Rampersad and D.Roessel), 126. New York: Knopf. 1995. ProQuest.

      16 Hughes, L. (1930). Dear lovely death. In: The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, (ed. A.Rampersad and D.Roessel), 182. New York: Knopf. 1995. ProQuest.

      17 Jarrell, R. (1945). The death of the ball turret gunner. In: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5e (ed. M. Ferguson, M.J. Salter, and J. Stallworthy), 981. New York and London: Norton. 2005.

      18 Loy, M. (1942). On third avenue. In: The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems, (M.Loy, ed. R.L.Conover), 109–110. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1996, first paperback edition 1997.

      19 McKay, C. (1919). If we must die. In: American Working-Class Literature: An Anthology, (ed. N.Coles and J.Zandy), 345. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP. 2007. HathiTrust.

      20 McKay, C. (1920). The lynching. In: American Working-Class Literature: An Anthology, (ed. N.Coles and J.Zandy), 346. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP. 2007. HathiTrust.

      21 Millay, E. (1917). Sonnet II [Time does not bring relief; you have all lied]. In: Renascence and Other Poems, (E.Millay). New York: Harper. 1917. Bartleby.com, 1999, [online], Available at https://www.bartleby.com/131/19.html#:~:text=%22time%20does%20not%20bring%20relief%3b%20you%20all%20have,edna%20st.%20vincent.%201917. %20renascence%20and%20other%20poems. (accessed 10 June 2021).

      22 Millay, E. (1921). Elegy before death. In: The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, (ed. N.Milford), 87. New York: Modern Library. 2001. HathiTrust.

      23 Millay, E. (1928). Dirge without music. In: The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems, (E.Millay), 43–44. New York and London: Harper. 1928. HathiTrust.

      24 Sandburg,