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XI. Lowell's Criticism of Romantic Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Harry Hayden Clark
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Extract

Few literary critics have received such differing evaluation as James Russell Lowell. On the one hand are those who refuse to recognize in his criticism any permanent value. Professor J. J. Reilly concludes his three hundred page study of Lowell as follows:

He has been regarded as a critic; in such a light he seems seriously to have regarded himself. But to assign him such a rank is to do him the injustice of over-estimation….. If Lowell is to survive, it must be frankly as an impressionist. For so far as criticism approaches a science, so far as it depends to any extent on ultimate principles, so far, in a word, as it is something more fundamental and abiding than the ipse dixit of an appreciator, Lowell is not a critic.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1925 , March 1926 , pp. 209 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 J. R. Lowell as a Critic, N.Y., 1915, p. 214.

2 American Prose Masters, N.Y., 1909, p. 315.

3 The Function of the Poet, Boston, 1920, p. 61.

4 In a Prefatory Note to the lectures given before the Lowell Institute in 1855, published in The Function of the Poet, pp. 33 and 34.

5 Makers of Literature, N.Y., 1901, pp. 346-7.

6 G. Pollak, The International Perspective in Criticism, N.Y., 1914, p. 59.

7 Lowell's Prose Works, Boston 1891, III, 67. (Hereafter cited as Works).

8 Ibid., iii, 67.

9 Modern Painters, N.Y., 1884. iii, 158-159.

10 Works, iii, 29.

11 Ibid., i, 21.

12 Lectures on the English Poets, p. 3.

13 Cf. his impressions of Milton's descriptions, (Works, iv, 99).

14 Works, ii, 166.

15 Works, iv, 356.

16 Reilly, op. cit., p. 87.

17 Poetical Works, i, 34; Cf. Letters, i, 104; Works, iv, 357, 262 ff.

18 Function of the Poet, p. 4.

19 Ibid., p. 9.

20 Ibid., p. 10.

21 Conversations on some of the Old Poets, p. 149.

22 Lectures on English Poets, p. 28.

23 Works, iv, 413.

24 Essays in Criticism, 2nd Series, London, 1921, p. 141.

25 English Poets, p. 203. Cf. Works, iv, 357, 48, 297.

26 Letters, i, 73.

27 Ibid., i, 79.

28 Works, iv, 266.

29 Function of the Poet, P. 64.

30 Works, iii, 291 ff.

31 Ibid., iv, 334 ff.

32 Ibid., iii, 92.

33 Ibid., iv, 162.

34 Function of the Poet, p. 10.

35 Function of the Poet, p. 13.

36 Ibid., pp. 75-76.

37 Ibid., p. 78.

38 Op. cit., p. 87.

39 Works, iii, 94. Cf. ii, 158, 212; English Poets, pp. 49, 66, and 71.

40 Ibid., iii, 270.

41 Ibid., ii, 121.

42 Harold Höffding, History of Modern Philosophy, London, 100, ii, 234.

43 Works, ii, 145.

44 Ibid., ii, 229.

45 Works, ii, 145.

46 Essays in Criticism, 2nd Series, London, 1921, p. 252.

47 Professor Babbitt in his “final summing up,” finds “this taint of eccentricity”—springing from the eccentric imagination—most significant in romanticism. (Rousseau and Romanticism, p. xxii)

48 Works, vi, 112.

49 Ibid., iv, 356.

50 Function of the Poet, pp. 73-74.

51 Works, vi, 71.

52 Ibid., vi, 72.

53 Ibid., vi, 73.

54 Ibid., vi, 75.

55 Ibid., iv, 401.

56 Works, ii. 78.

57 Ibid., ii, 118.

58 Ibid., i, 242.

59 Works, vi, 104.

60 Function of the Poet, p. 71.

61 Works, iv, 401.

62 Function of the Poet, pp. 73-74.

63 Works, iv, 356.

64 Ibid., iv, 357.

65 Ibid., ii, 259.

66 Function of the Poet, p. 71.

67 Works, vi, 111.

68 Ibid., i, 376; cf. iv, 412.

69 Works, iv, 371.

70 Ibid., i, 100. ii, 120;

71 Letters, i, 205.

72 Works, i, 100; cf. ii, 253.

73 Ibid., ii, 253, 160, 271.

74 Ibid., ii, 145, 240.

75 Ibid., i, 376; Latest Literary Essays, p. 165.

76 Ibid., ii, 250. What Lowell has to say of Rousseau is interesting because Rousseau represents all romanticism. Pierre Laserre writes: “Rien dans le Romantisme qui ne soit du Rousseau. Rien dans Rousseau qui ne soit romantique” (Le Romantisme Français, Paris, 1907, pp. 14-15).

77 Works, ii, 249.

78 Ibid., ii, 243.

79 “Essay in Grace and Didnity,” in Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical, London, 1875.

80 De la Littérature: Discours Préliminaire, N.Y., 1859.

81 Works, i, 219.

82 Ibid., ii, 243.

83 Ibid., ii, 195.

84 Ibid., in, 271.

85 Works, iv. 411-412.

86 Ibid., iii, 66; cf. ii, 79, 99; iv, 284; iii, 92.

87 Letters, i, 357.

88 Works, ii, 132.

89 Letters, ii, 85.

90 While Lowell praised the perfection of Greek art, he found its circle of motives was essentially limited. His objections to perfection and limitation are those of Ruskin. (Cf. Stones of Venice, ii, Ch. 6).

91 Function of the Poet, p. 20.

92Ibid., p. 14,

93 Reilly, op. cit., p. 199.