Legends of the Revolution: Poetical Myth-Making in the 19th Century

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and National Poetry Month, literary historian Rob Velella examines how 19th-century writers looked back on the Revolution and interpreted it for future generations. Through poetry, essays, and popular literature, these authors reshaped revolutionary figures and events into moral symbols and cultural myths that still influence how we understand the nation’s founding today.

The tour will highlight writers buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery and situates their work within a broader literary movement that used imagination and memory to construct a usable past.

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