The Centenary Celebration of James Russell Lowell last year showed that
he has become more esteemed as a critic and essayist than as a poet.
Lowell himself felt that his true calling was in critical work rather
than in poetry, and he wrote very little verse in the latter part of his
life. He was somewhat chagrined that the poetic flame of his youth did
not continue to glow, but he resigned himself to his fate; nevertheless,
it should be remembered that "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "The Biglow
Papers," and "The Commemoration Ode" are enough to make the reputation
of any poet.
The present volume sustains Lowell's right to be considered one of the
great American critics. The literary merit of some of the essays herein
is in many respects nowise inferior to that in some of the volumes he
collected himself. The articles are all exquisitely and carefully
written, and the style of even the book reviews displays that quality
found in his best writings which Ferris Greenslet has appropriately
described as "savory." That such a quantity of good literature by so
able a writer as Lowell should have been allowed to repose buried in the
files of old magazines so long is rather unfortunate. The fact that
Lowell did not collect them is a tribute to his modesty, a tribute all
the more worthy in these days when some writers of ephemeral reviews on
ephemeral books think it their duty to collect their opinions in book
form.
The essays herein represent the matured author as they were written in
the latter part of his life, between his thirty-sixth and fifty-seventh
years. The only early essay is the one on Poe. It appeared in _Graham's
Magazine_ for February, 1845, and was reprinted by Griswold in his
edition of Poe. It has also been reprinted in later editions of Poe, but
has never been included in any of Lowell's works. This was no doubt due
to the slight break in the relations between Poe and Lowell, due to
Poe's usual accusations of plagiarism. The essay still remains one of
the best on Poe ever written.
Though Lowell became in later life quite conservative and academic, it
should not be thought that these essays show no sympathy with liberal
ideas. He was also appreciative of the first works of new writers, and
had good and prophetic insight. His favorable reviews of the first works
of Howells and James, and the subsequent career of these two men,
indicate the sureness of Lowell's critical mind. Many readers will
enjoy, in these days of the ouija board and messages from the dead, the
raps at spiritualism here and there. Moreover, there is a passage in the
first essay showing that Lowell, before Freud, understood the
psychoanalytic theory of genius in its connection with childhood
memories. The passage follows Lowell's narration of the story of little
Montague.
None of the essays in this volume has appeared in book form except a few
fragments from some of the opening five essays which were reported from
Lowell's lectures in the _Boston Advertiser_, in 1855, and were
privately printed some years ago. Charles Eliot Norton performed a
service to the world when he published in the _Century Magazine_ in 1893
and 1894 some lectures from Lowell's manuscripts. These lectures are now
collected and form the first five essays in this book. I have also
retained Professor Norton's introductions and notes. Attention is called
to his remark that "The Function of the Poet" is not unworthy to stand
with Sidney's and Shelley's essays on poetry.
The rest of the essays in this volume appeared in Lowell's lifetime in
the _Atlantic Monthly_, the _North American Review_, and the _Nation_.
They were all anonymous, but are assigned to Lowell by George Willis
Cooke in his "Bibliography of James Russell Lowell." Lowell was editor
of the _Atlantic_ from the time of its founding in 1857 to May, 1861. He
was editor of the _North American Review_ from January, 1864, to the
time he left for Europe in 1872. With one exception (that on "Poetry and
Nationalism" which formed the greater part of a review of the poems of
Howells's friend Piatt), all the articles from these two magazines,
reprinted in this volume, appeared during Lowell's editorship. These
articles include reviews of poems by his friends Longfellow and
Whittier. And in his review of "The Courtship of Miles Standish," Lowell
makes effective use of his scholarship to introduce a lengthy and
interesting discourse on the dactylic hexameter.
While we are on the subject of the New England poets a word about the
present misunderstanding and tendency to underrate them may not be out
of place. Because it is growing to be the consensus of opinion that the
two greatest poets America has produced are Whitman and Poe, it does not
follow that the New-Englanders must be relegated to the scrap-heap. Nor
do I see any inconsistency in a man whose taste permits him to enjoy
both the free verse and unpuritanic (if I may coin a word) poems of
Masters and Sandburg, and also Whittier's "Snow-Bound" and Longfellow's
"Courtship of Miles Standish." Though these poems are not profound,
there is something of the universal in them. They have pleasant
school-day memories for all of us and will no doubt have such for our
children.
Lowell's cosmopolitan tastes may be seen in his essays on men so
different as Thackeray, Swift, and Plutarch. Hardly any one knows that
he even wrote about these authors. Lowell preferred Thackeray to
Dickens, a judgment in which many people to-day no longer agree with
him. As a young man he hated Swift, but he gives us a sane study of him.
The review of Plutarch's "Essays" edited by Goodwin, with an
introduction by Emerson, is also of interest.
The last essay in the volume on "A Plea for Freedom from Speech and
Figures of Speech-Makers" shows Lowell's satirical powers at their best.
Ferris Greenslet tells us, in his book on Lowell, that the Philip Vandal
whose eloquence Lowell ridicules is Wendell Phillips. The essay gives
Lowell's humorous comments on various matters, especially on
contemporary types of orators, reformers, and heroes. It represents
Lowell as he is most known to us, the Lowell who is always ready with
fun and who set the world agog with his "Biglow Papers."
Lowell's work as a critic dates from the rare volume "Conversations on
Some of the Old Poets," published in 1844 in his twenty-fifth year,
includes his best-known volumes "Among My Books" and "My Study Windows,"
and most fitly concludes with the "Latest Literary Essays," published in
the year of his death in 1891. My sincere hope is that this book will
not be found to be an unworthy successor to these volumes.
Though some of Lowell's literary opinions are old-fashioned to us (one
author even wrote an entire volume to demolish Lowell's reputation as a
critic), there is much in his work that the world will not let die. He
is highly regarded abroad, and he is one of the few men in our
literature who produced creative criticism.
Thanks and acknowledgments are due the _Century Magazine_ and the
literary representatives of Lowell, for permission to reprint in this
volume the first five essays, which are copyrighted and were published
in the _Century Magazine_.