The Spirit of American LiteratureBoni & Liveright, 1913 - 347 pages |
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... write fifty pages about Hawthorne and not write about Longfellow at all ; he wilfully elects whom he will discuss . Such liberty is here subdued to the general consensus of opinion as to what men of letters are important . Some ...
... write fifty pages about Hawthorne and not write about Longfellow at all ; he wilfully elects whom he will discuss . Such liberty is here subdued to the general consensus of opinion as to what men of letters are important . Some ...
Page 4
... writer to say : " Away with books ! I will draw my inspiration from life ! " For we have too many books that are simply better books diluted by John Smith . At the same time , literature is not born spontaneously out of life . Every ...
... writer to say : " Away with books ! I will draw my inspiration from life ! " For we have too many books that are simply better books diluted by John Smith . At the same time , literature is not born spontaneously out of life . Every ...
Page 6
... writes of London , influences Bret Harte , who writes of California , and Bret Harte influences Kipling , who writes of India . Each is intensely local in subject matter . The affinity between them is a matter of temperament , mani ...
... writes of London , influences Bret Harte , who writes of California , and Bret Harte influences Kipling , who writes of India . Each is intensely local in subject matter . The affinity between them is a matter of temperament , mani ...
Page 8
... write pseudo - Elizabethan dramas and sonnets about Mont Blanc . They set up an artificial Tennyson park on the banks of the Hudson . Beside the shores of Lake Michigan they croon the love affairs of an Arab in the desert and his noble ...
... write pseudo - Elizabethan dramas and sonnets about Mont Blanc . They set up an artificial Tennyson park on the banks of the Hudson . Beside the shores of Lake Michigan they croon the love affairs of an Arab in the desert and his noble ...
Page 9
... write very beautifully about nightin- gales , and a New England Unitarian may write beautifully about cathedrals ; if it is beautiful , it is poetry , and all is well . The novelists are the worst offenders . There have been few of them ...
... write very beautifully about nightin- gales , and a New England Unitarian may write beautifully about cathedrals ; if it is beautiful , it is poetry , and all is well . The novelists are the worst offenders . There have been few of them ...
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Common terms and phrases
admirable American literature Annie Kilburn artistic Autocrat beautiful Biglow born Boston Bret Harte Carlyle century chapter character Cooper critic dead death delight Doctor Johnson Emerson England English essay essayists expression eyes F. B. Sanborn fact fancy feel fiction genius Griswold Harvard Hawthorne Hawthorne's heart Henry James Holmes Howells Howells's human humour idea ideal imagination Innocents Abroad intellectual interesting Irving Irving's James Jane Austen labour Lanier Leaves of Grass lecture letters literary lived Longfellow Lowell Lowell's Mark Twain matter mind modern mood Natty Bumppo nature never novelist novels passion persons philosophy phrase Poe's poem poetic poetry poets portrait Professor prose Pudd'nhead Wilson reader realism romance says Scarlet Letter sense Shelley social song soul spirit story style talk thee things Thoreau thou thought Tolstoy true truth universe verse voice Whitman Whittier words write written wrote Yankee
Popular passages
Page 230 - Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death.
Page 178 - The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.
Page 221 - RECONCILIATION WORD over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost...
Page 79 - No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land.
Page 238 - O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields, Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! But my mate no more, no more with me! We two together no more.
Page 191 - It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century ; — But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men...
Page 259 - IN THIS book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri Negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
Page 111 - I LOVE the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.
Page 146 - A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents — he then combines such events that may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect.
Page 104 - MILTON I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.