Free eBooks - Literary Criticism - General
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PRELIMINARY
I
The writing of this preliminary chapter, and the final survey and revision of my Whitman essay, I am making at a rustic house I have built at a wild place a mile or more from my home upon the river. I call this place Whitman Land, because in many ways it is typical of my poet,—an amphitheatre of precipitous rock, slightly veiled with a delicate growth of verdure, enclosing a few acres of ... more...
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
In history we find certain names associated with great movements: Luther with the Reformation, or Garibaldi with the liberation of Italy. Luther certainly posted on the door of the church at Wittenberg his famous Theses, and burnt the Papal Bull at the gates of that city; yet before Luther there lived men, such as the scholar Erasmus, who have been appropriately named Reformers before ... more...
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PREFACE.
ore than twenty years have passed since my revered friend Bunsen called me one day into his library at Carlton House Terrace, and announced to me with beaming eyes that the publication of the Rig-veda was secure. He had spent many days in seeing the Directors of the East-India Company, and explaining to them the importance of this work, and the necessity of having it published in England. At ... more...
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I.
LD King Cole
Was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe,
And he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler, he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, went the fiddlers.
Oh, there's none so rare,
As can compare
With King Cole and his fiddlers three!
[The traditional Nursery Rhymes of ... more...
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CHAPTER I.
"The scene was savage, but the scene was new."
Scientists tell us many marvellous tales, none the less true because marvellous, about the prehistoric past. Like the owl in the preface, they are not discouraged because the starting-point is beyond reach; and we, like the cat, should try to awaken our interest when evidences are presented to us that on first hearing sound like the wonderful tales of ... more...
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PREFACE.
The following treatise was awarded the Harness Prize at Cambridge in 1904. I have, however, revised it since then, and in some matters considerably enlarged it.
A list of the chief authorities to whom I am indebted will be found at the end of the book, but it is fitting that I should here make particular mention of my obligations to the exhaustive work of Mr Bond. Not only have his labours of ... more...
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PREFACE
What I aim at in this book is little more than to give complete reflection to those great figures in Literature which have so long obsessed me. This poor reflection of them passes, as they pass, image by image, eidolon by eidolon, in the flowing stream of my own consciousness.
Most books of critical essays take upon themselves, in unpardonable effrontery, to weigh and judge, from their own petty ... more...
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Howells, William Dean
Howells, William Dean
American realist author and literary critic.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn [1888] and A Hazard of New Fortunes [1890].
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Emile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Perez Galdos, and ...
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn [1888] and A Hazard of New Fortunes [1890].
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Emile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Perez Galdos, and ...
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
The papers collected here under the name of 'My Literary Passions' were printed serially in a periodical of such vast circulation that they might well have been supposed to have found there all the acceptance that could be reasonably hoped for them. Nevertheless, they were reissued in a volume the year after they first appeared, in 1895, and they had a pleasing share of such favor as their ... more...
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OMAR CAYENNE
I
Wake! For the Hack can scatter into flight
Shakespere and Dante in a single Night!
The Penny-a-liner is Abroad, and strikes
Our Modern Literature with blithering Blight.
II
Before Historical Romances died,
Methought a Voice from Art's Olympus cried,
"When all Dumas and Scott is still for Sale,
Why nod o'er drowsy Tales, by Tyros tried?"
III
A cock-sure Crew with Names ne'er ... more...
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Lang, Andrew
Lang, Andrew
Andrew Lang (March 31 1844 - July 20 1912) was a prolific Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic but is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales.
His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France [1872], and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain [1884], Rhymes a la Mode [1884], Grass of Parnassus [1888], Ban and Arriere Ban [1894], New Collected Rhymes [1905].
He collaborated with S.H. Butcher in a prose translation [1879] of the Odyssey, and with E Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version ...
His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France [1872], and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain [1884], Rhymes a la Mode [1884], Grass of Parnassus [1888], Ban and Arriere Ban [1894], New Collected Rhymes [1905].
He collaborated with S.H. Butcher in a prose translation [1879] of the Odyssey, and with E Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version ...
INTRODUCTORY: OF MODERN ENGLISH POETRY
To Mr. Arthur Wincott, Topeka, Kansas.
Dear Wincott,—You write to me, from your “bright home in the setting sun,” with the flattering information that you have read my poor “Letters to Dead Authors.” You are kind enough to say that you wish I would write some “Letters to Living Authors;” but that, I fear, is out of the ... more...
