Poetry and Prophecy: The Question of Salvation in Abolitionist Poetry

Abstract

Combining art and politics, American abolitionist poets wrote of horrors and hopes both for individuals and the nation. John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and George Moses Horton each represent different types of poet prophets, abolitionists whose calling to write on behalf of the cause came from a compelling need to save America from its worst sin and save the country and its people. According to each of these poets, who is eligible for salvation? Why are these groups able to be saved, and what would need to happen to save them? What does salvation look like? Whittier, an ardent and vocal abolitionist, employs poetry as another method of persuasion. Writing in the style of Biblical poet prophets, his poems combine lyricism as well as an unwavering faith that redemption and salvation can exist for all people in America. A poet above all else, Longfellow, privately anti-slavery but publicly apolitical, hesitates in his denunciation of the practice, writing one book of abolitionist poetry before retreating back into his Fire Side poems. His prophetic tradition mirrors the Biblical Jonah who concerned himself equally with his reputation as his repudiation of wrongful actions. Horton, a man enslaved, writes inversions of typical readings of Biblical narratives, at times speaking directly to his people about G-d’s plan for them where salvation and liberation go hand in hand and cannot be disentangled. His poetry is infused with hope both for salvation from G-d and also, through his reimagined Biblical allusions, for a reconsideration in society of the worthiness of the Black population.