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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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Guerriere (search for this): chapter 1.12
he Dana Law School without awakening any liking for the law, and confessing later that the seduction of verse-writing had made this period less profitable than it should have been. Yet it was while he was supposed to be studying law, and when he was just twenty-one, that he wrote the first of his poems to achieve an immediate and lasting popularity. This was the fiery lyric on Old Ironsides, protesting against the breaking up of the frigate Constitution, victor in the naval duel with the Guerriere. The glowing stanzas were written in a white heat of indignation against the proposed degradation of a national glory; they were published in 1830 in the Boston Advertiser; they were copied in newspapers all over the country; they were reprinted on broadsides; and they accomplished their purpose of saving the ship, which did not go out of commission for more than half a century after Holmes had rhymed his fervent appeal for its preservation. At last he turned from the law to medicine, t
Philip Freneau (search for this): chapter 1.12
was to be discovered here and there in towns where the social organization had advanced beyond its elementary stages. Benjamin Franklin, a pioneer in so many different departments of human endeavour, seems to have been the earliest American to adventure himself among the difficulties of this lighter poetry, so closely akin to prose in its directness and in its seeming lack of effort; and perhaps his lines on Paper could open an American selection of familiar verse only by favouritism. Philip Freneau See Book I, Chap. IX. essayed it more than once; so did Royall Tyler, Ibid. our first writer of comedy; so did John Quincy Adams See Book II, Chap. XV. and James Kirke Paulding See Book II, Chap. V. and Washington Irving, See Book II, Chap. IV.—prose men all of them, dropping into rhyme only occasionally, and only when the spirit moved them. And it is a significant fact, supported by a host of examples in both branches of English literature, British and American, that i
Hoss Shay (search for this): chapter 1.12
too much to maintain a high average in the three hundred double-columned pages in which his complete poems are collected. No poet or prose man can take down to posterity a baggage wagon of his works, and he is lucky if he can save enough to fill a saddle-bag. Holmes's reputation as a poet will rise when his verses are winnowed and garnered into a thin volume of a scant hundred pages wherein Old Ironsides and The last leaf, The Chambered Nautilus and Homesick in heaven, The wonderful One-Hoss Shay and The Broomstick Train, Grandmother's Story of Bunker-Hill Battle, and a handful more are unincumbered by the hundreds of occasional verses which were each of them good enough for its special occasion and yet not good enough to demand remembrance after the event. There are a few of Holmes's loftier poems in which we feel that the inspiration is equal to the aspiration; but there are only a few of them, with The Chambered Nautilus at the head, accompanied by Homesick in heaven,—not ove
Royall Tyler (search for this): chapter 1.12
n had advanced beyond its elementary stages. Benjamin Franklin, a pioneer in so many different departments of human endeavour, seems to have been the earliest American to adventure himself among the difficulties of this lighter poetry, so closely akin to prose in its directness and in its seeming lack of effort; and perhaps his lines on Paper could open an American selection of familiar verse only by favouritism. Philip Freneau See Book I, Chap. IX. essayed it more than once; so did Royall Tyler, Ibid. our first writer of comedy; so did John Quincy Adams See Book II, Chap. XV. and James Kirke Paulding See Book II, Chap. V. and Washington Irving, See Book II, Chap. IV.—prose men all of them, dropping into rhyme only occasionally, and only when the spirit moved them. And it is a significant fact, supported by a host of examples in both branches of English literature, British and American, that it is in familiar verse that the expert essayist is most likely to be succe
Andrew Johnson (search for this): chapter 1.12
r, whereas in the Autocrat the characters have been created that they might listen. Yet in so far as the Autocrat has a model, this is plainly enough the eighteenth-century essay, invented by Steele, improved by Addison, clumsily attempted by Johnson, and lightly varied by Goldsmith. Steele is the originator of the form, since the earlier essay of Montaigne and of Bacon makes no use of dialogue; it has only one interlocutor, the essayist himself, recording only his own feelings, his own opiiliar verse, the lyric commingled of humour and pathos, brief and brilliant and buoyant, seemingly unaffected and unpremeditated, and yet— if we may judge by the infrequency of supreme success—undeniably difficult, despite its apparent ease. Dr. Johnson, who was himself quite incapable of it, too heavy footed to achieve its lightness, too polysyllabic to attain its vernacular terseness, was yet shrewd enough to see that it is less difficult to write a volume of lines, swelled with epithet
Washington Irving (search for this): chapter 1.12
American to adventure himself among the difficulties of this lighter poetry, so closely akin to prose in its directness and in its seeming lack of effort; and perhaps his lines on Paper could open an American selection of familiar verse only by favouritism. Philip Freneau See Book I, Chap. IX. essayed it more than once; so did Royall Tyler, Ibid. our first writer of comedy; so did John Quincy Adams See Book II, Chap. XV. and James Kirke Paulding See Book II, Chap. V. and Washington Irving, See Book II, Chap. IV.—prose men all of them, dropping into rhyme only occasionally, and only when the spirit moved them. And it is a significant fact, supported by a host of examples in both branches of English literature, British and American, that it is in familiar verse that the expert essayist is most likely to be successful when he risks himself in the realm of rhyme. Yet it is possible also to select specimens of this special type from the major poets, the sport of thei
Darwin (search for this): chapter 1.12
ahmin caste of New England. The man who thus described this caste was himself 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
Montaigne (search for this): chapter 1.12
e reason why he has been pleasantly companionable to countless readers who found in him a friendly quality which took them captive. His egotism was as patent as Montaigne's, even if it was not so frank in its expression nor so searching in its analysis. The more of himself he revealed, the more he won the hearts of his fellow menby Steele, improved by Addison, clumsily attempted by Johnson, and lightly varied by Goldsmith. Steele is the originator of the form, since the earlier essay of Montaigne and of Bacon makes no use of dialogue; it has only one interlocutor, the essayist himself, recording only his own feelings, his own opinions, and his own judgmenere 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
Bee (search for this): chapter 1.12
he spirit moved them. And it is a significant fact, supported by a host of examples in both branches of English literature, British and American, that it is in familiar verse that the expert essayist is most likely to be successful when he risks himself in the realm of rhyme. Yet it is possible also to select specimens of this special type from the major poets, the sport of their frolicsome moods, and no adequate anthology would fail to include Bryant's Robert of Lincoln, Emerson's Humble-Bee, Whittier's In School days and Longfellow's Catawba wine. From Lowell the examples would be half a dozen at least, with Auf Wiedersehen and Without and within as the first flowers to be picked. Indeed, Lowell is Holmes's only chief rival among American poets in the limited field of familiar verse, but he is less 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 Ame
Addison (search for this): chapter 1.12
t of my wine-press more coolly; and he added, continuations almost always sag a little. Perhaps the novelty of form was more apparent than real, since Steele and Addison had given us a group of characters talking at large as they clustered about Sir Roger de Coverley. But there is this salient difference, that in The spectator thcreated that they might listen. Yet in so far as the Autocrat has a model, this is plainly enough the eighteenth-century essay, invented by Steele, improved by Addison, clumsily attempted by Johnson, and lightly varied by Goldsmith. Steele is the originator of the form, since the earlier essay of Montaigne and of Bacon makes no colour. As Holmes had begun when a child by imitating the verse of Pope and Goldsmith, so as a man when he wrote prose he followed the pattern set by Steele and Addison. Although he was not born until the ninth year of the nineteenth century, he was really a survivor from the eighteenth century; and his prose like his verse has
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