Genteel.

Harvard professor George Santayan used the term Genteel Tradition in 1911 to describe the state of American literature and philosophy in the years following the turn of the century. Santayana felt that the prevailing literary mode was insipid and vague. Many others agreed with him. American literature especially poetry, seemed to be deferential to Europe and dedicated to the pursuit of the refined; it had little to do with life-as-lived but rather celebrated the romantic ideal. Mossy banks and sunlit groves proliferated in this kind of poetry; verses spilled over with "poetic diction"; themes were uplifting; serious challenge to the intellect was rare. But a new generation of writers shattered these conventions in the 1900s, exploring previously forbidden topics and new forms of expression.

Poetry.

Poetry was popular with the decade's newspaper and magazine readers. Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906),...