A Cycle of the West

What is A Cycle of the West about?

A Cycle of the West (1915–1941) is John G. Neihardt’s ambitious epic poem cycle telling the story of the American frontier in five long narrative poems. The cycle spans from the fur trade era of the early nineteenth century through the Indian Wars and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The five poems—The Song of Three Friends, The Song of Hugh Glass, The Song of Jed Smith, The Song of the Indian Wars, and The Song of the Messiah—follow real historical figures and events with narrative power and lyrical intensity. Neihardt writes with genuine sympathy for all parties caught up in the westward expansion—the mountain men driven by adventure and greed, the soldiers following orders, and the Native Americans fighting to preserve their way of life. The cycle’s climax at Wounded Knee achieves genuine tragic grandeur. Written in heroic couplets and blank verse, the poetry combines the ambition of classical epic with distinctly American subject matter and sensibility. A Cycle of the West represents one of the most sustained attempts to give the American frontier experience the literary treatment it deserves.