Review: Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric, by Virginia Jackson

Book Review| March 01 2024 Review: Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric, by Virginia Jackson Virginia Jackson, Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023. Pp. xiii + 303. 95 cloth; 35 paper. Matt Sandler Matt Sandler Columbia University Matt Sandler is the M. A. Program Director for the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He is the author of The Black Romantic Revolution: Abolitionist Poets at the End of Slavery (Verso, 2020) and is currently at work on a book about racial violence and self-help culture. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nineteenth-Century Literature (2024) 78 (4): 331–335. https: //doi. org/10. 1525/ncl. 2024. 78. 4. 331 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures Review: Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric, by Virginia Jackson. Nineteenth-Century Literature 1 March 2024; 78 (4): 331–335. doi: https: //doi. org/10. 1525/ncl. 2024. 78. 4. 331 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNineteenth-Century Literature Search In the interest of self-preservation, I make a point to notice when I am in a room with someone who is a better reader of poetry than me. I have been around long enough to know the limits of my own facility with poetics, and I know the educating sting of correction well. Early in my career, a hasty hotel-desk revision of a conference paper led me to misstate the stanzaic form of a poem, and I can still hear the venerable scholar who noticed my mistake: "Those are actually Spenserians on your handout, not ottava rima. It matters to get these things right. " My memory of the conference room in which this silly shameful scene took place is precise. As a result, I approach the task of reviewing Virginia Jackson's extraordinary new book with some trepidation. Another disclosure, in the spirit of critical ethics: for several years, roughly. . . You do not currently have access to this content.