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Racine (Wisconsin, United States) (search for this): chapter 11
d foreheads are extinguished and obscure brows grow bright. Posterity means night for some, dawn to others. Who would to-day believe, he asks, that the obscure writer Chapelain passed for long years as the greatest poet, not alone of France, but the whole world (le plus grand poete, nonseule-ment de France, mais du monde entier), and that nobody less potent than the Duchesse de Longueville would have dared to go to sleep over his poem of La Pucelle? Yet this was in the time of Corneille, Racine, Moliere, and La Fontaine. Heine points out that it is not enough for a poet to utter his own sympathies, he must also reach those of his audience. The audience, he thinks, is often like some hungry Bedouin Arab in the desert, who thinks he has found a sack of pease and opens it eagerly; but, alas! they are only pearls! With what discontent did the audience of Emerson's day inspect his precious stones! Even now Matthew Arnold shakes his head over them and finds Longfellow's little sen
Department de Ville de Paris (France) (search for this): chapter 11
Margaret Fuller, in the cultivated Cambridge circle of that day, that she spoke disrespectfully of Menzel in the Dial, and called him a Philistine—the first introduction into English, so far as I know, of that word since familiarized by Arnold and others. We fancy France to be a place where, if governments are changeable, literary fame, fortified by academies, rests on sure ground. But Theophile Gautier, in the preface to his Les Grotesques, says just the contrary. He declares that in Paris all praise or blame is overstated, because, in order to save the trouble of a serious opinion, they take up one writer temporarily in order to get rid of the rest. There are, he goes on, strange fluctuations in reputations, and aureoles change heads. After death, illuminated foreheads are extinguished and obscure brows grow bright. Posterity means night for some, dawn to others. Who would to-day believe, he asks, that the obscure writer Chapelain passed for long years as the greatest poe
New England (United States) (search for this): chapter 11
and when one was gravely asked whether he preferred Tennyson to Sterling or Trench or Alford or Faber or Milnes. It is to me one of the most vivid reminiscences of my Harvard College graduation (in 1841) that, having rashly ventured upon a commencement oration whose theme was Poetry in an Unpoetical Age, I closed with an urgent appeal to young poets to lay down their Spenser and Tennyson, and look into life for themselves. Prof. Edward T. Channing, then the highest literary authority in New England, paused in amazement with uplifted pencil over this combination of names. You mean, he said, that they should neither defer to the highest authority nor be influenced by the lowest? When I persisted, with the zeal of seventeen, that I had no such meaning, but regarded them both as among the gods, he said good-naturedly, Ah! that is a different thing. I wish you to say what you think. I regard Tennyson as a great calf, but you are entitled to your own opinion. The oration met with m
Lowell (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): chapter 11
my heart's delight! Dear room, the apple of my sight! With thy two couches soft and white, There is no room so exquisite, No little room so warm and bright, Wherein to read, wherein to write. I do not count it to the discredit of my mentor, after the lapse of half a century, that he discerned in this something which it is now the fashion to call veal. Similar lapses helped to explain the early under-estimate of the Lake school of poets in England, and Margaret Fuller's early criticisms on Lowell. On the other hand, it is commonly true that authors temporarily elevated, in the first rude attempts to solve the equation of fame, have afforded some reason, however inadequate, for their over-appreciation. Theophile Gautier, in the essay already quoted, says that no man entirely dupes his epoch, and there is always some basis for the shallowest reputations, though what is truly admirable may find men insensible for a time. And Joubert, always profounder than Gautier, while admitting th
France (France) (search for this): chapter 11
e cultivated Cambridge circle of that day, that she spoke disrespectfully of Menzel in the Dial, and called him a Philistine—the first introduction into English, so far as I know, of that word since familiarized by Arnold and others. We fancy France to be a place where, if governments are changeable, literary fame, fortified by academies, rests on sure ground. But Theophile Gautier, in the preface to his Les Grotesques, says just the contrary. He declares that in Paris all praise or blame illuminated foreheads are extinguished and obscure brows grow bright. Posterity means night for some, dawn to others. Who would to-day believe, he asks, that the obscure writer Chapelain passed for long years as the greatest poet, not alone of France, but the whole world (le plus grand poete, nonseule-ment de France, mais du monde entier), and that nobody less potent than the Duchesse de Longueville would have dared to go to sleep over his poem of La Pucelle? Yet this was in the time of Cor
William Hayley (search for this): chapter 11
once accepted meekly his own alleged inferiority to Rogers, and that Southey ranked himself with Milton and Virgil, and only with half-reluctant modesty placed himself below Homer; that Miss Anna Seward and her contemporaries habitually spoke of Hayley as the Mighty Bard, and passed over without notice Hayley's eccentric dependant, William Blake; that but two volumes of Thoreau's writings were published, greatly to his financial loss, during his lifetime, and eight others, with four biographieHayley's eccentric dependant, William Blake; that but two volumes of Thoreau's writings were published, greatly to his financial loss, during his lifetime, and eight others, with four biographies of him, since his death; that Willis's writings came into instant acceptance, while Hawthorne's, according to their early publisher, attracted no attention whatever; that Willis indeed boasted to Longfellow of making ten thousand dollars a year by his pen, when Longfellow wished that he could earn one-tenth of that amount,—we must certainly admit that the equation of fame may require many years for its solution. Fuller says in his Holy State that learning hath gained most by those books on wh
J. Chapelain (search for this): chapter 11
ays just the contrary. He declares that in Paris all praise or blame is overstated, because, in order to save the trouble of a serious opinion, they take up one writer temporarily in order to get rid of the rest. There are, he goes on, strange fluctuations in reputations, and aureoles change heads. After death, illuminated foreheads are extinguished and obscure brows grow bright. Posterity means night for some, dawn to others. Who would to-day believe, he asks, that the obscure writer Chapelain passed for long years as the greatest poet, not alone of France, but the whole world (le plus grand poete, nonseule-ment de France, mais du monde entier), and that nobody less potent than the Duchesse de Longueville would have dared to go to sleep over his poem of La Pucelle? Yet this was in the time of Corneille, Racine, Moliere, and La Fontaine. Heine points out that it is not enough for a poet to utter his own sympathies, he must also reach those of his audience. The audience, he
Walter Scott (search for this): chapter 11
at incalculable and often perplexing gift called genius. Young Americans write back from London that they wish they had gone there in the palmy days of literary society—in the days when Dickens and Thackeray were yet alive, and when Tennyson and Browning were in their prime, instead of waiting until the present period, when Rider Haggard and Oscar Wilde are regarded, they say, as serious and important authors. But just so men looked back in longing from that earlier day to the period of Scott and Wordsworth, and so farther and farther and farther. It is easy for older men to recall when Thackeray and Dickens were in some measure obscured by now forgotten contemporaries, like Harrison Ainsworth and G. P. R. James, and when one was gravely asked whether he preferred Tennyson to Sterling or Trench or Alford or Faber or Milnes. It is to me one of the most vivid reminiscences of my Harvard College graduation (in 1841) that, having rashly ventured upon a commencement oration whose th
Nathaniel Hawthorne (search for this): chapter 11
f with Milton and Virgil, and only with half-reluctant modesty placed himself below Homer; that Miss Anna Seward and her contemporaries habitually spoke of Hayley as the Mighty Bard, and passed over without notice Hayley's eccentric dependant, William Blake; that but two volumes of Thoreau's writings were published, greatly to his financial loss, during his lifetime, and eight others, with four biographies of him, since his death; that Willis's writings came into instant acceptance, while Hawthorne's, according to their early publisher, attracted no attention whatever; that Willis indeed boasted to Longfellow of making ten thousand dollars a year by his pen, when Longfellow wished that he could earn one-tenth of that amount,—we must certainly admit that the equation of fame may require many years for its solution. Fuller says in his Holy State that learning hath gained most by those books on which the printers have lost; and if this is true of learning, it is far truer of that incal
Matthew Arnold (search for this): chapter 11
tions to Margaret Fuller, in the cultivated Cambridge circle of that day, that she spoke disrespectfully of Menzel in the Dial, and called him a Philistine—the first introduction into English, so far as I know, of that word since familiarized by Arnold and others. We fancy France to be a place where, if governments are changeable, literary fame, fortified by academies, rests on sure ground. But Theophile Gautier, in the preface to his Les Grotesques, says just the contrary. He declares tha often like some hungry Bedouin Arab in the desert, who thinks he has found a sack of pease and opens it eagerly; but, alas! they are only pearls! With what discontent did the audience of Emerson's day inspect his precious stones! Even now Matthew Arnold shakes his head over them and finds Longfellow's little sentimental poem of The Bridge worth the whole of Emerson. When we consider that Byron once accepted meekly his own alleged inferiority to Rogers, and that Southey ranked himself with M
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