Edward Rowland Sill. Works. The Political Works of. 1906. 1 vol. His works appeared in book form originally as follows: The Hermitage and Other Poems, 1867; Venus of Milo, and Other Poems, 1883; Poems, 1887; The Hermitage, and Later Poems, 1889; Christmas in California: a Poem, 1898; Hermione, and Other Poems, 1899; Prose, 1900; Poems (Special Edition), 1902; Poems (Household Edition), 1906.

Biography and Criticism

The best biographical study is Edward Rowland Sill: his Life and Work, by W. B. Parker. 1915. See also Modern Poets and Christian Teaching (Gilder, Markham, Sill), by D. G. Downey. 1906.

Joaquin Miller. Works. Bear Edition. 1909–1910. 6 vols. A single-volume “complete” edition was published in 1892, 1897, and 1904. These appeared in book form originally as follows: Specimens, 1868; Joaquin et al., 1869; Pacific Poems, 1870; Songs of the Sierras, 1871; Songs of the Sunlands, 1873; Unwritten History: Life Amongst the Modocs (with Percival Mulford), 1874; The Ship in the Desert, 1875; First Families of the Sierras, 1875; Songs of the Desert, 1875; The One Fair Woman, 1876; The Baroness of New York, 1877; Songs of Italy, 1878; The Danites in the Sierras, 1881; Shadows of Shasta, 1881; Poems (Complete Edition), 1882; Forty-nine: a California Drama, 1882; ’49: or, the Gold-seekers of the Sierras, 1884; Memorie and Rime, 1884; The Destruction of Gotham, 1886; Songs of the Mexican Seas, 1887; In Classic Shades and Other Poems, 1890; The Building of the City Beautiful: a Poetic Romance, 1893; Songs of the Soul, 1896; Chants for the Boer, 1900; True Bear Stories, 1900; As It Was in the Beginning, 1903; Light: a Narrative Poem, 1907.

Biography and Criticism

There is no adequate biography or even biographical study. Of the historians of American literature only Churton Collins, C. F. Richardson, G. E. Woodberry, and F. L. Pattee (“American Literature since 1870”) accord Miller serious attention. The autobiographical preface to the Bear Edition and the same material scattered through the one-volume editions are the raw stuff for interpretation of Miller’s character and aim. These can be supplemented by his own article in the Independent on “What is Poetry?” See also Current Literature, Vol. XLVIII, p. 574.

See the historians above mentioned and the following review articles: Academy, Vol. II, p. 301; Vol. LIII, p. 181; Arena, Vol. XII, p. 86; Vol. IX, p. 553; Vol. XXXVII, p. 271; Current Opinion, Vol. LIV, p. 318; Dial, Vol. LIV, p. 165; Fraser’s, Vol. LXXXIV, p. 346; Godey’s, Vol. XCIV, p. 52; Lippincott’s, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 106; Munsey’s, Vol. IX, p. 308; Nation, Vol. XXVII, p. 336; Vol. XIII, p. 196; Vol. XVIII, p. 77; Vol. XCVI, pp. 169, 187, 230, 544.

TOPICS AND PROBLEMS

Compare the use of California and California life by Sill with use of the same material by Joaquin Miller or Bret Harte or Mark Twain.

Compare Sill’s “Hermitage” with Robert Frost’s “A Boy’s Will.” What is the likeness in the general drift of the two and what are the essential differences in the treatments of the theme?

Read W. B. Parker’s “Life of Sill” with especial reference to Sill’s letters and the degree to which they reveal his humor and his seriousness. Note poems which correspond in spirit or in content with given letters.

Compare the treatment of primitive Western life and adventure by Miller with use of the same material by Mark Twain or Bret Harte.

Read Miller for evidences of literary influence upon him of Scott or Byron or Coleridge or Browning.

Read Miller’s “Song of the South” and his explanatory remarks on it and compare Longfellow’s treatment of the Mississippi; or compare Masters’s preface to his volume “Toward the Gulf” and his poems on the same subject.

Note the insistence of Miller on the idea that life is power and in his later poems the increasing respect for reflection.

Compare Miller’s “Columbus” with Lowell’s “Columbus” and Lanier’s “Sonnets on Columbus.”