hide Sorting

You can sort these results in two ways:

By entity
Chronological order for dates, alphabetical order for places and people.
By position (current method)
As the entities appear in the document.

You are currently sorting in ascending order. Sort in descending order.

hide Most Frequent Entities

The entities that appear most frequently in this document are shown below.

Entity Max. Freq Min. Freq
Ralph Waldo Emerson 146 0 Browse Search
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 144 0 Browse Search
New England (United States) 124 0 Browse Search
Washington Irving 112 0 Browse Search
James Russell Lowell 102 0 Browse Search
Nathaniel Hawthorne 100 0 Browse Search
James Fenimore Cooper 90 0 Browse Search
Oliver Wendell Holmes 83 1 Browse Search
John Greenleaf Whittier 82 0 Browse Search
Edgar Allan Poe 80 0 Browse Search
View all entities in this document...

Browsing named entities in a specific section of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature. Search the whole document.

Found 175 total hits in 115 results.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...
Arthur Dimmesdale (search for this): chapter 11
wo centuries later, and his keener scrutiny found some ground of vindication for each one. The fidelity, the thoroughness, the conscientious purpose, were the same in each. Each sought to rest his work, as all art must in the end rest, upon the absolute truth. The writer kept, no doubt, something of the sombreness of the magistrate; each nevertheless suffered in the woes he studied; and as Nathaniel Hawthorne had a knot of pain in his forehead all winter while meditating the doom of Arthur Dimmesdale, so may the other have borne upon his brow the trace of Martha Corey's grief. A real obstacle. No, it does not seem that the obstacle to a new birth of literature and art in America lies in blind adherence to the Puritan tradition, but rather in the timid and faithless spirit that lurks in the circles of culture, and still holds something of literary and academic leadership in the homes of the Puritans. What are the ghosts of a myriad Blue Laws compared with the transplanted cy
Saturday Review (search for this): chapter 11
other have borne upon his brow the trace of Martha Corey's grief. A real obstacle. No, it does not seem that the obstacle to a new birth of literature and art in America lies in blind adherence to the Puritan tradition, but rather in the timid and faithless spirit that lurks in the circles of culture, and still holds something of literary and academic leadership in the homes of the Puritans. What are the ghosts of a myriad Blue Laws compared with the transplanted cynicism of one Saturday Review? How can any noble literature germinate where young men are constantly told by some of our professors that there is no such thing as originality, and that nothing remains for us in this effete epoch of history but the mere re-combining of thoughts which sprang first from braver brains? It is melancholy to see young men come forth from college walls with less enthusiasm than they carried in; trained in a spirit which is in this respect worse than English toryism, -that it does not even
Edward Tyrrell Channing (search for this): chapter 11
y for patronizing, is now a favorite with lovers of literature and art. It makes indeed a part of the magic of new books that no man can guess securely at their future. I remember vividly the surprise of my old friend and guide, Professor Edward Tyrrell Channing, then the highest literary authority in America, when I inserted in my Commencement oration at Harvard in 1841, a boyish compliment to Tennyson; only two or three copies of whose first thin volumes had as yet crossed the Atlantic, though these had been read with enthusiasm by young people at Concord and at Cambridge. I, exhorting young poets with the mature enthusiasm of seventeen, bade them lay down their Spenser and their Tennyson and look within, and Professor Channing let it pass in the understanding that by Spenser I meant the highest authority, and by Tennyson, the lowest. This construction I refused with some indignation, for it was a capital passage of which I was quite proud and which had been written by my eld
Hooper (search for this): chapter 11
oat, however small, on which his fame may float down towards immortality, even if it never attains it. This is the case, for instance, with Longfellow's Hiawatha, Lowell's Commemoration Ode, Holmes's Chambered Nautilus, Whittier's Snow-bound, Mrs. Howe's Battle Hymn, Whitman's My Captain, Aldrich's Fredericksburg sonnet, Helen Jackson's Spinning, Thoreau's Smoke, Bayard Taylor's Song of the Camp, Emerson's Daughters of time, Burroughs's Serene I Fold my hands, Piatt's The morning Street, Mrs. Hooper's I slept and dreamed that life was beauty, Stedman's Thou art mine, Thou hast given thy word, Wasson's All's well, Brownlee Brown's Thalatta, Ellery Channing's To-morrow, Harriet Spofford's In a summer evening, Lanier's Marshes of Glynn, Mrs. Moulton's The closed gate, Eugene Field's Little boy Blue, John Hay's The Stirrup Cup, Forceythe Willson's Old Sergeant, Emily Dickinson's Vanished, Celia Thaxter's Sandpiper, and so on. All of these may not be immortal poems, but they are at least
Grant (search for this): chapter 11
eceived from a curate whom he had reproved. The curate was given to fox-hunting, and when the bishop once reproved him and said it had a worldly appearance, Not more worldly, the curate replied, than a certain ball at Blenheim Palace at which the bishop had been present. The bishop explained that he was staying in the house, to be sure, but was never within three rooms of the dancing. Oh! If it comes to that, your lordship, said the curate, I never am within three fields of the hounds. Grant that nowhere in America have we yet got within those three fields,--we will not say of Shakespeare, but of Goethe, of Voltaire, even of Heine,--the hunt has at least been interesting, and we know not what to-morrow may bring forth. Matthew Arnold indignantly protested against regarding Emerson as another Plato, but thought that if he were to be classed with Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, a better case might be made out; and certainly that is something, while we wait for the duplicate Plato
Goethe (search for this): chapter 11
d him and said it had a worldly appearance, Not more worldly, the curate replied, than a certain ball at Blenheim Palace at which the bishop had been present. The bishop explained that he was staying in the house, to be sure, but was never within three rooms of the dancing. Oh! If it comes to that, your lordship, said the curate, I never am within three fields of the hounds. Grant that nowhere in America have we yet got within those three fields,--we will not say of Shakespeare, but of Goethe, of Voltaire, even of Heine,--the hunt has at least been interesting, and we know not what to-morrow may bring forth. Matthew Arnold indignantly protested against regarding Emerson as another Plato, but thought that if he were to be classed with Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, a better case might be made out; and certainly that is something, while we wait for the duplicate Plato to be born. Our new literature must express the spirit of the New World. We need some repression, no doubt, as th
Martha Corey (search for this): chapter 11
tion for each one. The fidelity, the thoroughness, the conscientious purpose, were the same in each. Each sought to rest his work, as all art must in the end rest, upon the absolute truth. The writer kept, no doubt, something of the sombreness of the magistrate; each nevertheless suffered in the woes he studied; and as Nathaniel Hawthorne had a knot of pain in his forehead all winter while meditating the doom of Arthur Dimmesdale, so may the other have borne upon his brow the trace of Martha Corey's grief. A real obstacle. No, it does not seem that the obstacle to a new birth of literature and art in America lies in blind adherence to the Puritan tradition, but rather in the timid and faithless spirit that lurks in the circles of culture, and still holds something of literary and academic leadership in the homes of the Puritans. What are the ghosts of a myriad Blue Laws compared with the transplanted cynicism of one Saturday Review? How can any noble literature germinate wh
Gladstone (search for this): chapter 11
n read Ingraham's Prince of the house of David; the boys who now pore over Henty would then have had Mayne Reid. Those who enjoy Gunter would have then read, it is to be presumed, the writings of Mr. J. W. Buel, whose very name will be, to most readers of to-day, unknown. His Beautiful story reached a sale of nearly three hundred thousand copies in two years; his Living world and The story of man were sold to the number of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand each, and were endorsed by Gladstone and Bismarck. This was only fifteen years ago, for in 1888 he received for copyright $33,000 and in 1889 $50,000; yet one rarely finds any book of reference or library catalogue that contains his name. Is it not better to be unknown in one's lifetime, and yet live forever by one poem, like Blanco White with his sonnet called Life and light, or by one saying, like Fletcher of Saltoun, with his I care not who makes the laws of a people, so I can make its ballads, than to achieve such evane
J. H. Robinson (search for this): chapter 11
past century, its fountain was to be found in the New World, not the Old. In speaking of the soundness of the judgment of the American public, one cannot, of The Popular course, include the vast number of Verdict. people who read some sort of books. In this country the authors who have achieved the most astounding popular successes, are, as a rule, absolutely forgotten. I can remember when Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., received by far the largest salary yet paid to any American writer, and Dr. J. H. Robinson spent his life in trying to rival him. The vast evangelical constituency which now reads Ben Hur then read Ingraham's Prince of the house of David; the boys who now pore over Henty would then have had Mayne Reid. Those who enjoy Gunter would have then read, it is to be presumed, the writings of Mr. J. W. Buel, whose very name will be, to most readers of to-day, unknown. His Beautiful story reached a sale of nearly three hundred thousand copies in two years; his Living world and The
Blanco White (search for this): chapter 11
a sale of nearly three hundred thousand copies in two years; his Living world and The story of man were sold to the number of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand each, and were endorsed by Gladstone and Bismarck. This was only fifteen years ago, for in 1888 he received for copyright $33,000 and in 1889 $50,000; yet one rarely finds any book of reference or library catalogue that contains his name. Is it not better to be unknown in one's lifetime, and yet live forever by one poem, like Blanco White with his sonnet called Life and light, or by one saying, like Fletcher of Saltoun, with his I care not who makes the laws of a people, so I can make its ballads, than to achieve such evanescent splendors as this? One thing the larger public is likely to do. It is a fortunate fact that popular judgment, even at the time, is apt to fix upon some one poem by each poet, for instance, and connect the author with that poem inseparably thenceforward. Fate appears to assign to each some one b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...