John Trumbull as a Critic of Poetry

Abstract

of the items in this collection were ,written in the 177o's and 1780's, a few date from a later period, so that there are comments, sometimes amounting to no more than memoranda, on a variety of writers from Homer to Byron. Too much must not be expected of Trumbull's critical utterances in a period when the most ardent devotees scarcely considered a literary career even possible in America. There is little likelihood that he considered publishing these, both because there was slight demand or market for American criticism and because the essays, though occasionally rich in detail and polished in phrase, are as wholes unfinished. Nevertheless they contain materials of real importance to the student of early American criticism. To give some idea of the range and quality of Trumbull's critical writing, discussion will be centered chiefly about a few topics: his conception