The Broadview Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A: Beginnings to 1820 ed. by Derrick R. Spires et al. (review)

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• The Broadview Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A: Beginnings to 1820 ed. by Derrick R. Spires et al.
• Abram van Engen (bio)

The Broadview Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A: Beginnings to 1820
edited by derrick r. spires, christina roberts, joseph rezek, justine s. murison, laura l. mielke, christopher looby, rodrigo Lazo, alisha knight, hsuan L. hsu, rachel greenwald smith, michael everton, and christine bold
Broadview Press, 2022
1044 pp.

The new Broadview Anthology of American Literature is a thing to behold. I mean that quite literally. After all our studies of book history—knowing how much the material product matters—we nonetheless stuck [End Page 233] for years to the same basic format: tiny print, crammed pages, and a weighty tome. The new Broadview, while still weighty, does not feel crammed. It uses double columns and wide pages to make the text seem almost inviting. I might pick this anthology over others on that basis alone, hoping it would lessen student dread when they start to read. But beyond a better feel, the double column also enables comparisons of related texts and side-by-side translations. I mean this sincerely: a change in format may seem small, but it makes a big difference.

So what do these columns actually contain? Seeking as wide a representation as possible, the editors have included a huge array of diverse voices, some of which have not appeared in prior anthologies (see below for a list of new authors). It is an excellent and exhaustive account of what Karin Wulf has called "vast early America" ("Vast Early America: Three Simple Words for a Complex Reality," Humanities, vol. 40, no. 2, Winter 2019, https://www.neh.gov/article/vast-early-america), and it is governed, as the editors note, by according "a place of utmost significance to slavery, the legacy of slavery, and, more generally, the ongoing struggle for equality" (xxxi). Such a theme was not ignored by other anthologies, but it has never been given so much emphasis.

Several principles of selection surround that theme: keeping the most-taught texts, adding space for once-popular authors (so much Longfellow!), and pushing forward some writers "who we believe deserve to be more widely taught" (xxvi) or who "have been unjustly neglected" (xxxii). The end result is an extraordinary display of the well-known and the little-considered. To make space for so much material, the anthology includes a large website portion, edited like the physical text. Authors on the website are listed in the table of contents, which increases their visibility, though the printed text remains primary. Altogether, the anthology offers a remarkable collection with good online teaching aids, stunning visuals, and a powerful emphasis on the inclusion of voices from every part of America.

In many ways, the new Broadview tells us where we stand as a field, so I want to reflect on just volume A (to 1820) as a portrait of early American literary studies. Ever since Eric Slauter noted a "trade gap" between history and English, early American literature has discussed how much literary scholars rely on or adopt historical methods in their work ("History, Literature, and the Atlantic World," EAL, vol. 43, no. 1, 2008, pp. 153–86). In this anthology, historical methods do seem to hold considerable sway. For [End Page 234] example, contextual material about literary genres has been moved entirely online. The editors say they did so after surveying the field and finding that instructors wanted "key aspects of the historical background" more than "overviews of the literary genres" (xxvii). History takes priority. That emphasis can affect the choice of texts as well. Edward Taylor, described as "one of the foremost religious poets in colonial America" (322), receives four printed pages, whereas Michael Wigglesworth's rather hellish poetry and tortured diary take up fourteen. Wigglesworth was popular in his own day and never since, so the inclusion of so much of his writing suggests that we teach him largely to access a historical period and its mindset. Wigglesworth also, in that way, becomes the more representative Puritan of the two. Unlike Taylor, he demonstrates for the editors how a staunch Puritan minister "was at the...