"This Mighty Convulsion": Whitman and Melville Write the Civil War

Christopher Sten, professor of English and American literature, co-edited this collection of essays, the first book exclusively devoted to the Civil War writings of Walt Whitman and Herman Melville, arguably the most important poets of the war. This volume adds to recent critical appreciation of the skill and sophistication of these poets; growing recognition of the complexity of their views of the war; and heightened appreciation for the anxieties they harbored about its aftermath.