The Blind Men and the Elephant

“Protestantism and the American Labor Movement: The Christian Spirit in the Gilded Age” by Herbert G. Gutman (1966)

Given the paucity of academic investigations specifically into Saxe’s poetry, this article provides a helpful historical context to position Saxe’s theological speculations within a culture that was growing uneasy over its certainty in a providential God. Using the rising labor movement as its historical template, the article draws on several Gilded Age poets (not Saxe) and muckraking journalists to argue the new spirit of scientific observation.

“‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’: John Godfrey Saxe’s Variation on the Famous Indian Legend” by Carol Schwartzott (1963)

Although dated, this is still the handiest summary overview of the ancient Buddhist parable on which Saxe based his poem and all of its permutations across nearly 15 centuries before Saxe’s theological take. The article shows the ties between Saxe’s idea and other earlier takes. The article argues that Saxe used the parable to show the limitations of human understanding and the importance of tolerance regarding religious and theological speculations.

The Poet and the Gilded Age by Robert Harris Walker (1963)

Still one of the most respected (and reader-friendly) surveys of both generations of the Fireside Poets, Walker shows how these poets moved American poetry from inherited British models to new American expressions of how verse should look and sound. Walker focuses on the impact of the Civil War and how the market-ready poetry of the second generation of Fireside Poets, among them Saxe, found an audience because they offered wisdom and accessible lessons to a culture still reeling from the trauma of the war.