Of the three major fictive genres, poetry alone was held in anything like high regard throughout our period. The writing of poems was respectable to an extent that the writing of prose fiction and stage plays definitely was not. Today it seems odd that the more mimetic genres were held suspect by an age of aesthetic utilitarianism in favor of the form now usually considered as having the least social impact. Undoubtedly, cultural inertia had much to do with this anomaly: Poetry had a traditional prestige the other genres lacked, as a polite accomplishment sanctioned by Milton, Pope, and (later) Wordsworth as an instrument of instruction and ennoblement. In any event, poetry was written throughout the American colonies from an early date and was institutionalized as a regular feature of the publishing scene well before the Revolution, whereas fiction and drama emerged much more slowly, not achieving similar legitimacy until well into the nineteenth century.

The premodern poetry of New England presents to the literary historian the paradox of an inconsequential superiority – “superiority” since by any standard American poetry between the Revolution and the centennial was dominated by New Englanders.