Charles William Kent

Charles William Kent shaped literary study and scholarly editing first in Tennessee and later in Virginia. A Houghton Mifflin anthology from 1913, Southern poems, carries his editorial credit. Rather than collecting Kent's own verse, it brings together writers including Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Timrod, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Margaret Junkin Preston, Francis Scott Key, and Mary Bayard Clarke. Kent joined the University of Tennessee in 1888, taught English and modern literature there, and established a departmental tradition of scholarly publication before leaving five years later. His 1889 edition of the Old English poem Elene included an introduction, text, notes, and vocabulary. He then accepted a newly endowed chair at Virginia. These roles clarify the credit: Kent selected and organized a multi-author historical survey. His name therefore represents editorial responsibility, not authorship of every poem in the volume.