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A Fable For Critics
''A Fable for Critics'' is a book-length satirical poem by American writer James Russell Lowell, first published anonymously in 1848. The poem made fun of well-known poets and critics of the time and brought notoriety to its author. Overview The plot of the book features the god Apollo in his form of Phoebus, god of poetry, sitting under a laurel tree. Having been sent a book of poems, he begins thinking aloud about the state of poetry. A critic joins the conversation and the two share observations on the writers of the day. Additionally, they compare European, particularly English, writers with those in the United States as well as the system of slavery. ''A Fable for Critics'' satirized many of the most important figures in American literature at the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Fenimore Cooper.Sullivan, 214 Many of his harshest judgments were aimed at names that have not survived in posterity, including Nathaniel Parker Willis, Cornelius Mathews, Fitz-Green ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fable For Critics Title Page
Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter ''excludes'' animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "" ("''mythos''") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter. A person who writes fables is referred to as a fabulist. Global history The fable is one of the most endurin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria White Lowell
Maria White Lowell (July 8, 1821 – October 27, 1853) was an American poet and abolitionist. Her poems were privately printed by her husband, James Russell Lowell, the poet, two years after her death. Early life Maria White was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, to a middle-class, intellectual family. She was raised under a strict ascetic discipline at an Ursuline convent which was burned by a mob in 1834. Career Lowell became involved in the temperance movement and was a supporter of women's rights. On November 6, 1839, she was one of the local women who attended the first "conversation" organized by women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller. The same year, Maria White's brother William introduced her to his Harvard College classmate, James Russell Lowell. The two became engaged in the autumn of 1840. However, her father Abijah White, a wealthy merchant, insisted that the wedding be postponed until Lowell had gainful employment. In the winter of 1843–44, Maria White and her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lowell Family
The Lowell family is one of the Boston Brahmin families of New England, known for both intellectual and commercial achievements. The family had emigrated to Boston from England in 1639, led by the patriarch Percival Lowle (c. 1570–1664/1665). The surname was spelt in many ways until it was standardised as Lowell from about 1721, apparently by the Rev. John Lowell. It was a later John Lowell (1743–1802) from whom the famous dynasty was descended. Background The Lowells originally settled on the North Shore at Cape Ann after they arrived in Boston on June 23, 1639. The patriarch, Percival Lowle, was born in Portbury before possibly becoming a merchant in Bristol and later arriving in the New World. By the 19th and 20th centuries, the Lowells descended from John Lowell (1743–1802) were widely considered to be one of America's most accomplished families. Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop needed solid, dependable people to settle the North Shore area as a buff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amy Lowell
Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Life Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Augustus Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A member of the Brahmin Lowell family, her siblings included the astronomer Percival Lowell, the educator and legal scholar Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, an early activist for prenatal care. They were the great-grandchildren of John Lowell and, on their mother's side, the grandchildren of Abbott Lawrence. School was a source of considerable despair for the young Amy Lowell. She considered herself to be developing "masculine" and "ugly" features and she was a social outcast. She had a reputation among her classmates for being outspoken and opinionated. At fifteen she wanted to be a photographer, poet, and coach racer. Lowell never attended college because her fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Literary Messenger
The ''Southern Literary Messenger'' was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from August 1834 to June 1864, and from 1939 to 1945. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some variation thereof and included poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reviews, and historical notes. It was founded by Thomas Willis White, who served as publisher and occasional editor until his death, in 1843. White hired Edgar Allan Poe in 1835 as a staff writer and critic. Others involved with the periodical included Matthew Fontaine Maury and Maury's kinsman Benjamin Blake Minor. Publication ended in June 1864, in part because of Richmond's involvement in the American Civil War, and was revived from 1939–1945. History The ''Southern Literary Messenger'' first appeared in August 1834 with Thomas Willis White (1788–1843) as publisher. In the inaugural issue, he stated that his aim was "to stimulate the pride and genius of the south, and awa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823May 9, 1911), who went by the name Wentworth, was an American Unitarianism, Unitarian minister, author, Abolitionism, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in abolitionism in the United States during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. He was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown (abolitionist), John Brown. During the American Civil War, Civil War, from 1862 to 1864, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers (Union), 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized United States Colored Troops, black regiment. Following the war, he wrote ''Army Life in a Black Regiment'' and devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed people, women, and other disfranchised people. He is also remembered as a mentor to poet Emily Dickinson. Early life and education Higginson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Wetmore Story
William Wetmore Story (February 12, 1819 – October 7, 1895) was an American sculptor, art critic, poet, and editor. Life and career William Wetmore Story was the son of U.S. Supreme Court judge Joseph Story and Sarah Waldo (Wetmore) Story. He graduated from Harvard College in 1838 and the Harvard Law School in 1840. After graduation, he continued his law studies under his father, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and prepared two legal treatises of value – ''Treatise on the Law of Contracts not under Seal'' (2 vols., 1844) and ''Treatise on the Law of Sales of Personal Property'' (1847). He abandoned law to devote himself to sculpture, and after 1850 lived in Rome, where he had first visited in 1848, and where he counted among his friends the Brownings and Walter Savage Landor. In 1856, he received a commission for a bust of his late father, now in the Memorial Hall/Lowell Hall, Harvard University. Story's apartment in Palazzo Barberini became a central location f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings, as well as his 1866 book '' Snow-Bound''. Early life and education Whittier was born to John and Abigail ( Hussey) Whittier at their rural homestead in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1807. His middle name is thought to mean ''feuillevert'', after his Huguenot forebears. He grew up on the farm in a household with his parents, a brother and two sisters, a maternal aunt and paternal uncle, and a constant flow of visitors and hired hands for the farm. As a boy, it was discovered that Whittier was color-blind when he was unable to see a difference between ripe and unripe strawberries. The farm was not very profitable, and there was only enough mone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives ''Don Juan'' and ''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage''; many of his shorter lyrics in '' Hebrew Melodies'' also became popular. Byron was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, before he travelled extensively in Europe. He lived for seven years in Italy, in Venice, Ravenna, Pisa and Genoa after he was forced to flee England due to threats of lynching. During his stay in Italy, he would frequently visit his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero. He died leading a campaign in 1824, at the age of 36, from a fever contracted after the first and second sieges of Missolonghi. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's ''Divine Comedy'' and was one of the fireside poets from New England. Longfellow was born in Portland, District of Maine, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine). He graduated from Bowdoin College and became a professor there and, later, at Harvard College after studying in Europe. His first major poetry collections were ''Voices of the Night'' (1839) and ''Ballads and Other Poems'' (1841). He retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, and he lived the remainder of his life in the Revolutionary War headquarters of George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (; August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among the fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with '' The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table'' (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer, and inventor. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Holmes was educated at Phillips Academy and Harvard College. After graduating from Harvard in 1829, he briefly studied law before turning to the medical profession. He began writing poetry at an early age; one of his most famous works, " Old Ironsides", was published in 1830 and was influential in the eventual preservation of the USS ''Constitution''. Following training at the prestigious medical schools of Paris, Holmes was grante ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of political economy, political economy, education, museology, geology, botany, ornithology, literature, history, and myth. Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even The King of the Golden River, a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
