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Edinburgh Review (search for this): chapter 7
ane spectator seem a little remote, by comparison, from the more eager questions of their day. Yet Lowell's best work was done in a field of pure letters toward the cultivation of which America had before his time done very little. His criticism of contemporaries cannot, for the most part, be greatly praised. In the period of Lowell's literary bringing — up the traditions of the English Christopher North had reached over to America, and men had learned to measure merit by stings. The Edinburgh Review had set the example, and the Quarterly and Blackwood's magazine had followed it. The recognized way to deal with a literary heretic was to crush him. Among authors, too, it was a time of defiant and vehement mutual criticism; it was thought a fine thing to impale somebody, to make somebody writhe, to get even with somebody, and it was hard for the younger men to keep clear of the flattering temptation. Poe in New York proceeded cheerfully with these tactics, and Lowell in Cambridge wa
James Russell Lowell (search for this): chapter 7
Holmes came personally more before the public; Lowell was more brilliant and varied; but, taking theal of their contemporaries, notably Holmes and Lowell. To Holmes, especially, with his sunny temper in 1857 the Atlantic monthly was founded, and Lowell became its editor, he stipulated that Dr. Holm country. Holmes died Oct. 7, 1894. James Russell Lowell. James Russell Lowell was born in CaJames Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Feb. 22, 1819. His father was a Unitarian minister of old Massachusetts stock. As a schoolboy Lowell showed little regular industry, but a great deal of cleverness and an insatiable hunger stream flowed so much more smoothly? It was Lowell who had accepted literature as his sphere, whies regarded it as a mere avocation; yet it was Lowell who never quite attained smoothness or finish is words. What makes the matter worse is that Lowell charges the sin of wearisomeness upon both Masery essay as an illustration of that same sin. Lowell says of Milton's prose tracts:-- Yet it m[9 more...]
Charles Brockden Brown (search for this): chapter 7
en, that the past offered no material, and that American authors must be European or die. Yet Longfellow's few notable predecessors had already made themselves heard by disregarding this tradition and taking what they found on the spot. Charles Brockden Brown, though his style smacked of the period, found his themes among the American Indians and in the scenes of the yellow fever in Philadelphia. It was not Irving who invested the Hudson with romance, but the Hudson that inspired Irving. Lpopular heart. It is possible that this simplicity was the precise contribution needed in that early and formative period of American letters. Literature in a new country naturally tends to the florid, as had been shown by the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, or even by so severe a work as Bancroft's History of the United States. In poetry, Poe was to give only too wide a prestige to the same tendency. In subsequent years Longfellow published many volumes of verse, in which his experiments
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (search for this): chapter 7
ore properly in Cambridge; and the house of Longfellow, always hospitable, was its headquarters. ittier was born within five miles of the old Longfellow homestead, where the grandfather of his brot qualities that mark poet or man. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The death of Henry Wadsworth Lonstance of unbroken and unstained success. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, Feb. 27, 1807.erican subjects. It must be remembered that Longfellow came forward at a time when cultivated Amerince, but the Hudson that inspired Irving. Longfellow's first book of original verse, Voices of thg peculiarly to America. But in criticising Longfellow's earlier poetry, we must not lose sight of judgment. But, apart from any single work, Longfellow's fame was secure, and his death in March, 1duct of a simple and healthy way of living. Longfellow and Whittier — who died Sept. 4, 1892 undenie that he was so frankly a man of the hour. Longfellow in his quiet scholastic life and Holmes in h[26 more...]
William Lloyd Garrison (search for this): chapter 7
e him one of the most permanent. John Greenleaf Whittier. Whittier, like Garrison,--who first appreciated his poems,--was brought up apart from what Dr. Holmes sister to a Haverhill newspaper attracted the attention of its editor, William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was himself only twentyone, but his lively interest in WhittGarrison was himself only twentyone, but his lively interest in Whittier's work was of great value to the young poet, and laid the foundation of a lifelong friendship. Garrison urged the elder Whittier to give his son better schoolinGarrison urged the elder Whittier to give his son better schooling, but poverty stood in the way. A chance came a little later to take a few terms in a newly established academy at Haverhill; and that was all the formal education Wggravate my misfortune. He was not, however, to return to farm life. Through Garrison he was offered the editorship of a weekly temperance paper called the Philanthe seemed likely to slip into politics till, once again under the leadership of Garrison, he became identified with the anti-slavery movement, a connection which effec
Robert Burns (search for this): chapter 7
to have been more than any other American the poet of familiar life. What Lowell said dramatically, he could say from experience: We draw our lineage from the oppressed. Compared with him Longfellow, Holmes, even Lowell, were poets of a class. Burns was his favorite poet, and, in later years, he attained, in the naturalness and flow of his song, to something like the lyric power of his master. A few of Longfellow's poems possess this quality, but it pervades the mature work of Whittier. Cothough not a little of his poetry lacks compactness and finish, very little of it lacks power. His rudest shafts of song, as Mr. Stedman has said, were shot true and far and tipped with flame. It is only in this respect that Whittier resembles Burns. His character was as firm, and his life as well ordered, as Longfellow's. It has, indeed, been the fashion among those who remember the famous phrase, Great wits are sure to madness near allied, to condemn all these poets as too respectable, to
Campbell (search for this): chapter 7
ee of the hundred or more experiments in verse which he made before the age of twenty-five. From journalism he seemed likely to slip into politics till, once again under the leadership of Garrison, he became identified with the anti-slavery movement, a connection which effectually debarred him from political success. Personally, my first interview with Whittier was in my student days, soon after my graduation from college, when I was dining in Boston at an economical restaurant known as Campbell's, then a haunt for two classes of patrons, Harvard students and abolitionists. When I was nearly through my modest repast, a man near me exclaimed impetuously, There is Whittier! I had lately become an ardent reader of his poems, and looking eagerly in the direction indicated, I saw a man just rising from table,--looking thirtyfive years old or thereabouts,--slender, erect, in the straight-cut Quaker coat, a man with rich olive complexion, black hair and eyebrows, brilliant eyes, and a c
Walter Pater (search for this): chapter 7
through them is like a long sea voyage whose monotony is more than compensated for the moment by a stripe of phosphorescence leaping before you in a drift of star-sown snow, coiling away behind in winking disks of silver, as if the conscious element were giving out all the moonlight it had garnered in its loyal depths since first it gazed upon its pallid regent. The criticism on Lowell comes with force from FitzGerald, who always cultivated condensation, and it also recalls the remark of Walter Pater, that the true artist may be best recognized by his skill in omission. Apart from his bent for personalities, however, and from the question of his ability to practice what he preached, there is in the substance of his best prose work a sound body of criticism such as no other American has yet produced. For scholarship, incisiveness, and suggestiveness, such papers as the essays on Dryden, Pope, and Dante have been surpassed by very little criticism written in English. The special
Dante (search for this): chapter 7
arnered in its loyal depths since first it gazed upon its pallid regent. The criticism on Lowell comes with force from FitzGerald, who always cultivated condensation, and it also recalls the remark of Walter Pater, that the true artist may be best recognized by his skill in omission. Apart from his bent for personalities, however, and from the question of his ability to practice what he preached, there is in the substance of his best prose work a sound body of criticism such as no other American has yet produced. For scholarship, incisiveness, and suggestiveness, such papers as the essays on Dryden, Pope, and Dante have been surpassed by very little criticism written in English. The special service of the New England literature of the middle of the nineteenth century was to achieve an enlargement of the national horizon. In Cambridge, as we have seen, the expansion was primarily mental and aesthetic; in Concord, as we are about to see, it was mainly speculative and spiritual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (search for this): chapter 7
l-known group of poets which adorned Boston and its vicinity so long. The first to go was also the most widely famous. Emerson reached greater depths of thought; Whittier touched the problems of the nation's life more deeply; Holmes came personallw and unformed literature was priceless. The first need of such a literature was no doubt a great original thinker like Emerson. But for him we should perhaps have been still provincial in thought and imitative in theme and illustration; our poetswhich they might never have seen anywhere, rather than about the bobolink and the humble — bee, which they knew. It was Emerson and the so-called Transcendentalists who really set our literature free; yet Longfellow rendered a service only secondar. Holmes loved to call the Brahmin class in America; those, namely, who were bred to cultivation by cultivated parents. Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, were essentially of this class; all their immediate ancestors were, in French phrase, gens
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