William Ellery Channing's Remarks on National Literature and John Milton

"In justifying the placement of William Ellery Channing within the ranks of early nineteenth-century literary figures, editors, literary critics, and literary historians generally cite the two prominent qualities associated with Channing's name--first, his notion of a national literature as "the expression of a nation's mind in writing"' second, his influence upon such eastern American writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes the elder, and Willian Cullen Bryant." -Samuel J. Rogal

In addition to biographical information about the Channings, this volume includes William Ellery Channing's Remarks on National Literature in its literary and historical context.