The King James Bible first arrived in America in 1630 with John Winthrop who was to become Governor of Massachusetts. Although the Geneva Bible had been brought over by the Puritans in 1560, the KJB gradually became more popular. Being widely read, and read aloud, it exerted a strong influence on American English and the formation of national identity
Nineteenth Century America
04 November 2023
The King James Bible first arrived in America in 1630 with John Winthrop, later Governor of Massachusetts. It provided both a blueprint and a vision for the new colony and by the 19th century was deeply influential upon with work of writers such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and Herman Melville.
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Emily Dickinson
Poet Emily Dickinson (1830-86) was born into a family of Puritan heritage and educated at Amherst College, Massachusetts. Reading the KJB was an essential part of her home and community life and she was therefore very familiar with its text. Biblical听allusions and metaphors, most often from Genesis, Revelation and the four Gospels, as well as references to the Old Testament books of Deuteronomy and Isaiah and the Psalms occur frequently in her poetry and letters.听
Dickinson frequently employed a compact writing style, as for an aphorism. She used a biblical word or phrase as a听springboard for her own, often unconventional, reflections 听on the world, relationships, spirituality and poetry. Poem 1657 offers one example:听
and for another instance:
A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook...
)
('The word made flesh' is taken from听John 1:14).
Emily Dickinson is known to have relished the somewhat non-contemporary style of expression of the KJB and refers to it in familiar terms in Poem 1545:
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Further Reading
Jack Capps,听 鈥楾he King James Version鈥 in听听(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 27-59.
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Resources Online
Biography of Emily Dickinson on the听. Includes profile, poems, audio and podcasts.
Works by Emily Dickinson on听
Emily Dickinson
Frontispicee to the听Poems of Emily Dickinson听edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leete Hampson (London, Jonathan Cape, 1947)
Title page of听Leaves of Grass听(Camden, N.J. : [Walt Whitman], 1882) (1.5MB)
Walt Whitman
Frontispiece to听Leaves of Grass听(Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, year 85 of the States (1860-61) Boston George C. Rand & Avery).
Walt Whitman
鈥楴o true bard will ever contravene the Bible鈥: so said Walt Whitman in his essay听'The Bible As Poetry'听in听November Boughs听V.听In common with many writers of period, Walt Whitman frequently alluded to the Bible in his poetry, although it is seldom quoted directly. Christ and the prophets are used frequently, particularly in听Leaves of Grass. In 鈥楽ong of Myself鈥 Whitman explores the idea that he himself is Christ (鈥楧ivine I am inside and out, and I make holy whatever I am touch or am touch鈥檇 from...鈥) (section 524). All of nature and humanity is integrated and should therefore be celebrated as one.
Whitman intended听Leaves of Grass听to become a sacred text in its own right, referring in an 1857 notebook to his听 鈥楪reat Construction of the New Bible鈥. Many elements of biblical style can be found in Whitman鈥檚 narrative and rhetorical techniques, for example:
'I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are
with me...'
There was child went forth every day,
And the first object he look鈥檇 upon, that object he became....,
Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
Complete in body and dilate in spirit,
Be thou my God...
Further Reading
听 ed. by J. Le Master and Donald Kummings (New York, NY/London: Garland, 1998).
Walt Whitman,听.听(New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States; Distributed by Viking Press, 1982).
, ed. by Harold Blodgett and Sculley Bradley (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1965).
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Resources Online
. Includes biography, correspondence, manuscripts, audio files and finding aids.
Walt Whitman on the听. Includes profile, poems, audio and podcasts.
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Resources@Canterbury
Walt Whitman,听. Camden, NJ: [Walt Whitman], 1882. Autographed by the author.
