Introduction: Slaves, Spheres, Poetess Poetics

This book examines the performance of the Political Poetess and its mythic, absolute identification with “separate spheres.” It explores the connection between “Political Poetess” and “Black Poetess” in relation to nineteenth-century women's patriotic poetry, “Politics” as practiced by nation-states, and ongoing conflicts around the histories of slavery and the meanings of “race.” The book is divided into three sections: the first considers racialized Poetess reception and performance, the second analyzes negotiations with the forms of “spheres” and of sentimental poetry, and the third deals with transatlantic readings. Each section focuses on a “nineteenth-century Poetess” who shifts, flickers, and mourns through the nineteenth century, the 1930s, the 1970s, the 1990s, and beyond.