Free eBooks - Literary Criticism
Total eBooks in selected subject: 180 on 18 pages.
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THE DEGRADATION OF BEAUTY
Some time ago I found myself at an exhibition of Post-Impressionist pictures, under the ægis of an artist who was himself of that persuasion. Indeed, he was one of the exhibitors, and I was constrained to express my opinions in the form of questions. We passed before a picture which to my untutored eyes was formless, meaningless and ugly. It was by a well-known artist, and my ... more...
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Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Statesman and novelist, was the son of Isaac Disraeli. Belonging to a Jewish family settled first in Spain, whence in the 15th century they migrated to Italy, he was born in London in 1804 and privately educated. His father destined him for the law, and he was articled to a solicitor. The law was, however, uncongenial, and he had already begun to write. After some journalistic work, he brought himself into general notice by the publication, in 1827, of his first novel, Vivian Grey, which created a sensation by its brilliance, audacity, and slightly veiled portraits of living celebrities. After producing a Vindication of the British Constitution, and some political ...
CHARLES THE FIRST.
Of his romantic excursion into Spain for the Infanta, many curious particulars are scattered amongst foreign writers, which display the superstitious prejudices which prevailed on this occasion, and, perhaps, develope the mysterious politics of the courts of Spain and Rome.
Cardinal Gaetano, who had long been nuncio in Spain, observes, that the people, accustomed to revere the ... more...
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Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Statesman and novelist, was the son of Isaac Disraeli. Belonging to a Jewish family settled first in Spain, whence in the 15th century they migrated to Italy, he was born in London in 1804 and privately educated. His father destined him for the law, and he was articled to a solicitor. The law was, however, uncongenial, and he had already begun to write. After some journalistic work, he brought himself into general notice by the publication, in 1827, of his first novel, Vivian Grey, which created a sensation by its brilliance, audacity, and slightly veiled portraits of living celebrities. After producing a Vindication of the British Constitution, and some political ...
ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. DISRAELI.
BY HIS SON.
The traditionary notion that the life of a man of letters is necessarily deficient in incident, appears to have originated in a misconception of the essential nature of human action. The life of every man is full of incidents, but the incidents are insignificant, because they do not affect his species; and in general the importance of every occurrence is ... more...
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INTRODUCTION.
My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for reviving these essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they were written; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements which have since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developed new characteristics at the expense of what was originally more prominent. Other pages, again, take no account of ... more...
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As was explained in the Note to the Preface of the previous editions and impressions of this book, after the first, hardly one of them appeared without careful revision, and the insertion of a more or less considerable number of additions and corrections. I found, indeed, few errors of a kind that need have seemed serious except to Momus or Zoilus. But in the enormous number of statements of fact which ... more...
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Scattered over the surface of every country in Europe may be found sepulchral monuments, the remains of pre-historic times and nations, and of a phase of life will civilisation which has long since passed away. No country in Europe is without its cromlechs and dolmens, huge earthen tumuli, great flagged sepulchres, and enclosures of tall pillar-stones. The men by whom these works were made, so interesting in ... more...
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INTRODUCTION.
1. Tongue, Speech, Language.—We speak of the “English tongue” or of the “French language”; and we say of two nations that they “do not understand each other’s speech.” The existence of these three words—speech, tongue, language—proves to us that a language is something spoken,—that it is a number of sounds; and that the writing or ... more...
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Thackeray, William Makepeace
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Novelist, son of Richmond Thackeray, who held various important appointments in the service of the East India Company, and who belonged to an old and respectable Yorkshire family, was born at Calcutta, and soon after the death of his father, which took place in 1816, sent home to England. After being at a school at Chiswick, he was sent to the Charterhouse School, where he remained from 1822–26, and where he does not appear to have been very happy. Meanwhile in 1818 his mother had married Major H.W.C. Smythe, who is believed to be, in part at any rate, the original of Colonel Newcome. In 1829 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for a year ...
I.—ON THE DISINTERMENT OF NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.
MY DEAR ——,—It is no en the Voyage from St. Helena asy task in this world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I should laud up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small ... more...
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INTRODUCTION.
I.
The death of John Dryden, on the first of May, 1700, closed a period of no small significance in the history of English literature. His faults were many, both as a man and as a poet, but he belongs to the race of the giants, and the impress of greatness is stamped upon his works. No student of Dryden can fail to mark the force and sweep of an intellect impatient of restraint. His ... more...
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My Dear Antony,
The letters which I wrote "On the world about you" having shown you that throughout all the universe, from the blazing orbs in infinite space to the tiny muscles of an insect's wing, perfect design is everywhere manifest, I hope and trust that you will never believe that so magnificent a process and order can be without a Mind of which it is the visible expression.
The chief object of ... more...
