James Russell Lowell as a CriticG. P. Putnam's sons, 1915 - 228 pages |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
¹ Letters abolitionism admiration appear Arnold attacks beauty become Boston Miscellany Calderon called Carlyle century character Chaucer classic Coleridge Coleridge's conservatism critical essays Dante Dante's declares dicta diction discussion drama Dryden Elizabethan endeavor English literature English Poets essay on Pope expression eyes faculty French Goethe Greek Greenslet Ibid ideas imagination impression influence interest James Russell Lowell judgment judicial attitude Keats lack language later Latest Literary Essays less Lowell's Matthew Arnold Milton mind modern mood moral nature never North American Review novel numbers obiter dicta Old English Dramatists opinion penetration Petrarch phrase poem poet poet's poetic poetry political Pope prose quack of genius qualities question regarding Review Rousseau Sainte-Beuve Says Lowell seems sense sentence sentimentalism sentimentalist Shakespeare Speaking Spenser style sympathy taste things Thoreau thought tion Topham Beauclerk true ultimate principles vague verse Vide weakness word Wordsworth writes wrote
Fréquemment cités
Page 123 - I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory ; but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.
Page 5 - I had a revelation last Friday evening. I was at Mary's, and happening to say something of the presence of spirits (of whom, I said, I was often dimly aware), Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speaking, the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the Abyss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in me and around me. The whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of Something...
Page 123 - That I have had my world as in my time ! " The portrait of Chaucer, which we owe to the loving regret of his disciple Occleve, confirms the judgment of him which we make from his works. It is, I think, more engaging than that of any other poet. The downcast eyes, half sly, half meditative, the sensuous mouth, the broad brow, drooping with weight of thought, and yet with an inexpugnable youth shining out of it as from the morning forehead of a boy, are all noticeable, and not less so their harmony...
Page 123 - Schiller has the material Sublime; to produce an effect, he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakespeare drops a handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow.
Page 123 - In poetry, to be next-best is, in one sense, to be nothing ; and yet to be among the first in any kind of writing, as Dryden certainly was, is to be one of a very small company. He had, beyond most, the gift of the right word. And if he does not, like one or two of the greater masters of song, stir our sympathies by that indefinable aroma so magical in arousing the subtile associations of the soul, he has this in common with the few great writers, that the winged seeds of his thought embed themselves...
Page 53 - No language after it has faded into diction, none that cannot suck up the feeding juices secreted for it in the rich mother-earth of common folk, can bring forth a sound and lusty book.
Page 123 - Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it.
Page 63 - ... consents to every mood of grace and dignity, which can be simple without being vulgar, elevated without being distant, and which is something neither ancient nor modern, always new and incapable of growing old.
Page 13 - Tis as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, With his gnarled bony branches like ribs of the wood, Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe, With a single anemone trembly and rathe...
Page 84 - The theory that the poet is a being above the world and apart from it is true of him as an observer only who applies to the phenomena about him the test of a finer and more spiritual sense. That he is a creature divinely set apart from his fellow-men...