The Galaxy was founded in 1866 by brothers William Conant Church and Francis Pharcellus Church. It ran until 1878 when it was absorbed by the Atlantic. The Galaxy published serial fiction, essays, advertisements, and poetry. Notable contributors include Henry James, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Anthony Trollope, and Sarah M. B. Piatt. According to Robert J. Scholnick, the Galaxy was particularly important to Whitman in the immediate post-Civil War years. The New York monthly published parts of Whitman’s Democratic Vistas, John Burroughs’ “Walt Whitman and His ‘Drum Taps,’” (an essay that established Whitman’s reputation), as well as four of Whitman’s poems in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Edward F. Grier has claimed that The Galaxy “was important to [Whitman’s] personal fortunes and literary reputation. The Galaxy was respectable, it was popular, and it paid generously.” Scholnick and Grier give us a sense that the Galaxy was an important platform for writers and poets looking to establish and develop their literary personas, as well as for those seeking to widen their audiences.
The issue included in this post features chapter 38 of Anthony Trollope’s seduction novel, The Claverings, as well as Sarah M. B. Piatt’s poem, “Shape of a Soul.” Piatt’s poem, although written in a fairly conventional form (six quatrains in almost perfect iambic pentameter) explores an unconventional subject in its lines. Using the rhetoric of separate spheres ideology, the speaker sets out to contextualize the gendering of the shape of her soul. Stanzas one through three illustrate the “pretty names for pretty moods” (9) that label her soul. Such blandishments, the speaker asserts, are “sweet shapes. . .” (10). But when the soul is taken out of its “sphere of bloom and dew, / . . .where will then your bird or blossom be?” (11-12). When the soul is detached from the sphere of feminine gentility, it reveals a more complex shape: e.g., “my soul would be a tiger fierce and bright”; “my soul would seem a snake” (15, 20). Piatt’s poem offers a critical look at assumed links between the soul and gender norms by expounding, through conventional verse, the pervasive and insolent use of feminine pet names that described women in the nineteenth century.
The issue included in this post features chapter 38 of Anthony Trollope’s seduction novel, The Claverings, as well as Sarah M. B. Piatt’s poem, “Shape of a Soul.” Piatt’s poem, although written in a fairly conventional form (six quatrains in almost perfect iambic pentameter) explores an unconventional subject in its lines. Using the rhetoric of separate spheres ideology, the speaker sets out to contextualize the gendering of the shape of her soul. Stanzas one through three illustrate the “pretty names for pretty moods” (9) that label her soul. Such blandishments, the speaker asserts, are “sweet shapes. . .” (10). But when the soul is taken out of its “sphere of bloom and dew, / . . .where will then your bird or blossom be?” (11-12). When the soul is detached from the sphere of feminine gentility, it reveals a more complex shape: e.g., “my soul would be a tiger fierce and bright”; “my soul would seem a snake” (15, 20). Piatt’s poem offers a critical look at assumed links between the soul and gender norms by expounding, through conventional verse, the pervasive and insolent use of feminine pet names that described women in the nineteenth century.
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