Book Description

Excerpt from Columbia, an Epic Poem on the Late Civil War, Vol. 1: Between the Northern and Southern States of North America The sphere of an epic poem is bounded by certain well-defined limitations. The song that would appeal to a nation must not be personal, sectional, or sectarian; neither radical nor conservative; avoiding extremes, its aim should be to interest, instruct and benefit all; wound the sensitive feelings of none, nor cater to the prejudices of any. To accomplish this difficult task, it becomes necessary to adhere rigidly to recognized truths, neither ignoring demonstrated facts to please the conservative portion of the community, nor indorsing radical theories to gain the approbation of extremists. Indeed, the province of an epic poem is not to express opinions or advance theories, but to describe and narrate events, historical or fictitious, in the guise of poetry. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.