Title: Poems of religion and society.Author: John Quincy AdamsPublisher: Gale, Sabin Americana Description: Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and ...
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Title: Poems of religion and society.Author: John Quincy AdamsPublisher: Gale, Sabin Americana Description: Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, religious history and more.Sabin Americana offers an up-close perspective on life in the western hemisphere, encompassing the arrival of the Europeans on the shores of North America in the late 15th century to the first decades of the 20th century. Covering a span of over 400 years in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, this collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions and momentous events of the time. It provides access to documents from an assortment of genres, sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature and more.Now for the first time, these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand, making them readily accessible to libraries, students, independent scholars, and readers of all ages.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++SourceLibrary: Huntington LibraryDocumentID: SABCP03755600CollectionID: CTRG01-B3239PublicationDate: 18480101SourceBibCitation: Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to AmericaNotes: Collation: 108 p.; 16 cm
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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John Quincy Adams (1767 -- 1848) served as the sixth president among many other accomplishments as a diplomat, Secretary of State, Congressman, and attorney in public life. In his private life, Adams was devoted to literature, as shown most clearly in the diary which he kept for nearly his entire life. Throughout his life, Adams also wrote poetry, and it provides a revealing look into the inner man. I recently read an outstanding new biography of John Quincy Adams by Fred Kaplan, John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, distinguished emeritus professor of English at Queens College. Kaplan's biography lays great stress on Adams' poetry, quoting and discussing it frequently. For example, Kaplan writes in the Introduction to his study: "[Adams'] poems are often graceful, witty immediate, and engaging in the eighteenth century sense; some are lightly occasional, others autobiographical. Gifted with a caustic strain, he also wrote satiric poetry with a bite, and his religious and patriotic poetry engaged his deepest feelings." After reading Kaplan's book, I wanted to read some of Adams' poetry for myself.
After his death, a volume of Adams' poetry was published titled "Poems of Religion and Society" (1848). The volume begins with two short commemorations of Adams' life and character by John Davis (1787 -- 1854) who served at various times as Congressman and Senator from Massachusetts and as governor, and Thomas Hart Benton (1782 -- 1858), the long-serving Senator from Missouri. A generous selection of Adams' poems follows, many of which had been published earlier. The book is somewhat obscure and, of course, long out of copyright. It is available in several offprint editions here on Amazon and also may be read electronically with a little digging.
Adams' poetry is rhymed and in closed stanzas. It owes an obvious debt to English neo-classical writers such as Alexander Pope. The poems also reflect in theme and form Adams' extensive knowledge of Latin and Greek. The volume includes, for example, Adams' lengthy translation of a satire of the Roman poet Juvenal. The poetry also reflects Adams' knowledge of the Bible. Many of the poems are, if not translations, paraphrases of the Psalms, including a poem called "My Shepherd is the Lord on High", based on the 23d Psalm. The poems show throughout an awareness of the shortness and tragic character of human life illuminated by Adams' hard-won and deeply felt Christian faith. The poems read easily. They frequently are eloquent and musical.
In the best and most personal of the poems, Adams speaks in his own voice rather than adopting Biblical or classical texts to his purposes. Thus, the collection opens with an extended autobiographical poem "The Wants of Man" in which Adams moves from explaining his wants for comfort and material things to his want for love, friendship, and fame, to wanting religious and spiritual insight and "the mercy of my God" following death. In a short poem, "To the Sun-Dial", Adams meditates on the passage of time as reflected in the sun-dial outside the House of Representatives. The sun-dial deals in shadows but reminds Adams of ultimate realities. He writes:
"Yet are thy counsels faithful, just, and wise;
They bid us seize the moments as they pass --
Snatch the retrieveless sunbeam as it flies,
Nor lose one sand of life's revolving glass--
Aspiring still, with energy sublime,
By virtuous deeds to give eternity to Time."
In "To E- B", Adams wrote eloquently of long-lost love in a poem that is almost certainly autobiographical. The poem "To a Lady who Presented him with a Pair of Knit Gloves" celebrates the peace and contentment Adams found in the love and friendship of women. "The Lip and the Heart" is a short dialogue of the inner life. "To a Bereaved Mother", "The Death of Children", and "Written in Sickness" are likewise personal and commemorate tragedies in Adams' life.
In his biography, Kaplan offers the following additional discussion of Adams' poetry.
"[H]e was an excellent versifier and rhymer, with an abundance of learned skill and a touch of estimable talent. He was, though, aware that his poetry suffered from over reliance on what it did best. It left it short of what the greatest poetry has: imaginative genius that transforms the mastery of technical devices into a totality in which the devices are in service of something intelligently beautiful and aesthetically profound.... [T]here are many stanzas here and there and more than a few worth reading and remembering as one of the tonal registers of a rich life."
I read Adams' "Poems of Religion and Society" both for the poems themselves and for the insights they offer into Adams' thought and feelings. For readers wanting an accessible short sampling of the poems, three of them are available in volume 1 of the Library of America's anthology of American poetry of the Nineteenth Century. American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1: Philip Freneau to Walt Whitman Readers interested in exploring the broad world of American poetry or with a strong interest in John Quincy Adams will enjoy exploring Adams' poetry.
