The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, July 1836)

These are the voices of young Americans on the edge of a literary tradition. Written by Yale students in the summer of 1836, this issue of The Yale Literary Magazine offers a window into what educated young Americans were thinking, dreaming, and arguing about on the eve of the American Renaissance. The collection includes essays on morality and greatness, poems reaching toward transcendence, and literary criticism that reveals the intellectual currents of the era. Here you will find unsigned pieces by young men who would soon become doctors, lawyers, ministers, and perhaps even authors who helped shape American letters. They write with earnest ambition and genuine passion, unpolished but vital. For anyone curious about where American literature came from, these pages offer an intimate portrait of a generation finding its voice.