Modern American Poetry - An Anthology #255305

From 1866 to 1880 the United States was in a chaotic and frankly materialistic condition; it was full of political scandals, panics, frauds, malfeasance in high places. The moral fiber was flabby; the country was apathetic, cor rupt and contented. As in all such periods of national unconcern, the artists turned from life altogether, pre occupying themselves with the by-products of art: with method and technique, with elaborate and artificial con ceits, with facile ideas rather than fundamental ideals.