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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 2 (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.). Search the whole document.

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Dryden (search for this): chapter 1.12
h century, when English literature conformed to French principles. His favourite reading as a child was Pope's Homer, the couplets of which stimulated his imagination in spite of their formal symmetry. And even their formal symmetry was not displeasing to his natural taste: And so the hand that takes the lyre for you Plays the old tune on strings that once were new. Nor let the rhymester of the hour deride The straight-backed measure with its stately stride; It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope; It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope; In Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter strain, Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain; I smile to listen while the critic's scorn Flouts the proud purple kings have nobly worn. The even merit of its occasional verse is one of the obvious qualities of the eighteenth century which we find also in Holmes. Late in life he admitted that he had become rather too well known in connection with occasions. He was intensely loyal to Bos
Dickens (search for this): chapter 1.12
places, not for their bearing on the story itself, and not even for suggesting the appropriate atmosphere of the action, but mainly if not solely for their own sake, and quite in the manner of the character-writers who had blazed the trail for the early essayists. By the side of figures thoroughly known and delicately delineated, there are others, not a few, outlined in the primary colours and trembling on the very verge of caricature. In this we can discover the unfortunate influence of Dickens, as we can perceive the fortunate influence of Hawthorne in the treatment of the abnormal heroine. And equally obvious is the influence of Thackeray, who also began and ended his career as an essayist. Thackeray, even if he had a bias toward moralizing, confessed to the Brookfields that he found his ethical lectures very convenient when he had to pad out his copy to fill the allotted number of pages in the monthly parts in which his larger novels originally appeared. But Thackeray, after
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (search for this): chapter 1.12
meticulous in finish and polish and more likely to charge his lines with a meaning too large for the lyric which aims above all else at lightness and brightness. Three other American poets of high ambition, Stedman, See Book III, Chap. X. Aldrich, Ibid. and Bret Harte, See Book III, Chaps. V. and VI. gave a more abundant share of their attention to the poetry which is blithe and buoyant; and in any selection of the best in this kind, it would be inexcusable to omit Stedman's Pan in wall Street, Aldrich's In an Atelier, or Bret Harte's Her letter. Nor would any competent editor exclude from such a collection Weir Mitchell's Decanter of Madeira, George Arnold's Jolly old pedagogue, or Charles Henry Webb's Dum Vivimus Vivamus. Nor would it be difficult largely to increase this list of examples chosen from the verse of men whose reputation has been won mainly in other fields. Three of our lighter lyrists demand a little more detailed consideration,—John Godfrey Saxe (181
John Burroughs (search for this): chapter 1.12
ty, it never lacks seriousness, without ever becoming ponderous. It may be that Holmes does not attain to the high seriousness, the deep seriousness, of enduring philosophy; and it cannot be denied that there are pages here and there which are not as valid today as when they were written. It would be doing the Autocrat an ill-service to compare him with his remote and mighty predecessors Montaigne and Bacon. And it may be admitted that there is more or less warrant for the remark of John Burroughs, to the effect that Holmes always reminded him of certain of our bird songsters, such as the brown thrasher or the cat-bird,whose performances always seem to imply a spectator and to challenge his admiration. Holmes seems to write with his eye upon his reader, and to calculate the advance upon his reader's surprise and pleasure. To admit this would be only to acknowledge the truth of the French saying that every man has the defects of his qualities. But it cannot be admitted if it imp
Jolly (search for this): chapter 1.12
n poets of high ambition, Stedman, See Book III, Chap. X. Aldrich, Ibid. and Bret Harte, See Book III, Chaps. V. and VI. gave a more abundant share of their attention to the poetry which is blithe and buoyant; and in any selection of the best in this kind, it would be inexcusable to omit Stedman's Pan in wall Street, Aldrich's In an Atelier, or Bret Harte's Her letter. Nor would any competent editor exclude from such a collection Weir Mitchell's Decanter of Madeira, George Arnold's Jolly old pedagogue, or Charles Henry Webb's Dum Vivimus Vivamus. Nor would it be difficult largely to increase this list of examples chosen from the verse of men whose reputation has been won mainly in other fields. Three of our lighter lyrists demand a little more detailed consideration,—John Godfrey Saxe (1816-87), Eugene Field See also Book III, Chap. IX. (1850-95), and Henry Cuyler Bunner See also Book III, Chap. VI. (1855-96), though the last two belong to a period somewhat later
Beuve (search for this): chapter 1.12
also when he suggested that Holmes's serious poetry had scarcely been the serious work of his life. Even at its best this serious poetry is the result of his intelligence rather than of his imagination. It lacks depth of feeling and largeness of vision. It has a French felicity of fancy, a French dexterity of craftsmanship, a French point and polish; and also a French inadequacy of emotion. Assuredly we love poetry in France, said Anatole France when he was discussing the verse of Sainte-Beuve; but we love it in our own fashion; we insist that it shall be eloquent, and we willingly excuse it from being poetic. Old Ironsides, fiery as its lines ring out, is eloquent rather than truly poetic. Here again Holmes declares himself as a survival from the eighteenth century, when English literature conformed to French principles. His favourite reading as a child was Pope's Homer, the couplets of which stimulated his imagination in spite of their formal symmetry. And even their forma
Edgar Allan Poe (search for this): chapter 1.12
a Brahmin of the strictest sect, endowed with its best qualities, and devoid of its less estimable characteristics,—the tendency to anemia and to the semi-hysterical outlook of the dyspeptic reformer. He was energetic, wholesome to the core, sound and sane, unfailingly alert, fundamentally open-minded, never tempted to crankiness or freakishness. He was born in an illustrious year, 1809, which saw the birth of Darwin and Lincoln, of Tennyson and Gladstone, of Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Edgar Allan Poe. It was toward the end of August that the Rev. Abiel Holmes, author of the Annals of America , See Book II, Chap. XVII. made a brief entry at the foot of a page in his almanac, —29. son b. The son was named Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Wendell being the maiden name of his mother, descended from an Evert Jansen Wendell who had been one of the early settlers of Albany; and thus her son could claim a remote relationship with the Dutch poet Vondel: And Vondel was a Wendell who spelt
Evert Jansen Wendell (search for this): chapter 1.12
crankiness or freakishness. He was born in an illustrious year, 1809, which saw the birth of Darwin and Lincoln, of Tennyson and Gladstone, of Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Edgar Allan Poe. It was toward the end of August that the Rev. Abiel Holmes, author of the Annals of America , See Book II, Chap. XVII. made a brief entry at the foot of a page in his almanac, —29. son b. The son was named Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Wendell being the maiden name of his mother, descended from an Evert Jansen Wendell who had been one of the early settlers of Albany; and thus her son could claim a remote relationship with the Dutch poet Vondel: And Vondel was a Wendell who spelt it with a V. Through his father, the Calvinist minister, and his grandfather, a physician who had served in the Revolution with the Continental troops, Holmes was descended from Anne, daughter of Thomas Dudley, governor of Massachusetts Bay, and wife of Simon Bradstreet, twice governor of the province. For Anne B
Lampson (search for this): chapter 1.12
l equivalent of the essay in its charm, in its grace and in its colloquial liberty, Holmes has few rivals in our language. It was with strict justice that Locker-Lampson, in the preface to the first edition of Lyra Elegantiarum (1867）—to this day the most satisfactory anthology of vers de societe; ,—declared that Holmes was perhaps the best living writer of this species of verse. It may be recorded also that Locker-Lampson paid Holmes the even sincerer compliment of imitation, borrowing for two of his delightful lyrics not only the spirit but also the stanza Holmes had invented for The last leaf. With characteristic frankness the London lyrist once told a admirer that this stanza might seem easy but it was difficult, so difficult that no one had handled it with complete success—except Holmes and himself. Locker-Lampson derived directly from Praed, whose verses have an electric and dazzling brilliance, whereas in Holmes the radiance is more subdued and less blinding. Of all the
Thackeray (search for this): chapter 1.12
influence of Dickens, as we can perceive the fortunate influence of Hawthorne in the treatment of the abnormal heroine. And equally obvious is the influence of Thackeray, who also began and ended his career as an essayist. Thackeray, even if he had a bias toward moralizing, confessed to the Brookfields that he found his ethical Thackeray, even if he had a bias toward moralizing, confessed to the Brookfields that he found his ethical lectures very convenient when he had to pad out his copy to fill the allotted number of pages in the monthly parts in which his larger novels originally appeared. But Thackeray, after all, was a born story-teller, an inspired novelist, who got absorbed in his story and felt as though he were watching and not inventing his situatioThackeray, after all, was a born story-teller, an inspired novelist, who got absorbed in his story and felt as though he were watching and not inventing his situations. Holmes lingered by the way and chatted with the reader, not from any external necessity, but because digression and even disquisition is to the essayist the breath of life. In The Guardian Angel, the heroine is a composite photograph of half a dozen warring ancestors of whom now one and now another emerges into view to ins
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