Selections from American poetry Part 51

157. Compare with the Prelude to the Second Part of "The Vision of Sir Launfal."

163. The river Charles near its mouth is affected by the ocean tides.

178. Why is the river pictured as dumb and blind?

182. Compare Whittier's "Snow-Bound."

187. gyves: fetters.

190. Druid-like device. At Stonehenge (1. 192) in England is a confused ma.s.s of stones, some of which are in their original positions and which are supposed to have been placed by the Druids. It is possible that the sun was wors.h.i.+ped here, but everything about the Druids is conjecture.

201. A view near at hand is usually too detailed to be attractive. But in the twilight, near-by objects become softened, the distance fades into the horizon, and a soothing picture is formed.

209. The schools and colleges. Probably Harvard College is here included, as Lowell graduated there.

217. Compare this idea with that in the following lines from Wordsworth's "The Daffodils":

"I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought; For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils."

The justice of these opinions should be tested by each student from his own experience.

A FABLE FOR CRITICS

36. ignified: melted.

40. An example of Lowell's puns, which are generally critcized as belonging to a low order of humor.

41. Parna.s.sus: a mountain in Greece, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and hence the domain of the arts in general.

49. inter nos: between us.

bl. ices. Isis was the Egyptian G.o.ddess of the arts and of agriculture.

60. bemummying: a word coined by Lowell to mean causing one to dry up like a mummy.

68.. Pythoness: woman with power of prophecy.

69. tripod: a bronze altar over which the Pythoness at Delphi uttered her oracles.

"Most of his judgments are, however, those of posterity though often, as in the case of Hawthorns, he was characterizing writers who had not done their best work." --CAIRNS.

92. scathe: injury.

93. rathe: early in the season.

96. John Bunyan Fouque is an extraordinary combination of names as of characteristics. Bunyan is known everywhere for his devotion to truth as he saw it; the oak in character. Friederich Heinrich Karl, Baron de Lamotte-Fouque, was a German soldier, but is better known as a romantic writer. His best-known work is "Undine," the anemone in daintiness of fancy and delicacy of expression.

A Puritan Tieck is another anomaly. From the early poems in this anthology the Puritan type is evident; Tieck was a German writer who revolted against the sternness of life and believed in beauty and romance.

110. In 1821 Scott published The Pilot, a novel of the sea, which was very popular. Cooper, however, thought he could improve upon it and so in 1823 he published "The Pilot," hoping to show his superiority.

112. The bay was used for a garland of honor to a poet.

124. Nathaniel b.u.mpo was "Leatherstocking," who gave his name to the series of Cooper s novels.

126. Long Tom Coffin was the hero in The Pilot.

130. derniere chemise. A pun upon the word "s.h.i.+ft," which here means stratagem.

148. Parson Adams is one of the most delightful of all notion characters. Fielding pictures him in his novel Joseph Andrews in such a manner that you always sympathize with him even if you must laugh at his simplicity.

Dr. Primrose in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield is a direct literary descendant of Parson Adams. He is one of the best-known characters in English fiction. To be cla.s.sed with these two men is high praise for Natty b.u.mpo.

161. Barnaby Rudge, the hero of d.i.c.kens's novel of that name, kept a tame raven.

162. fudge: nonsense, rubbish.

180. Collins and Gray: English poets. William Collins, an English lyric poet (1721-1759) was a friend of Dr. Johnson. Thomas Gray (1716-1771) is best known by his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard."

182. Theocritus, a Greek poet of the third century B.C., was the founder of pastoral poetry. Since his idea was the original one, his judgment of his followers would be better than that of any one else.

190. Irving had been so long a resident in Europe that America almost despaired of reclaiming him. He did return, however, in 1832, after making himself an authority on Spanish affairs.

196. Cervantes: the author of Don Quixote, and the most famous of all Spanish authors. He died on the same day as Shakespeare, April 23, 1616.

200. Addison and Steele together wrote the Spectator Papers (1711-1712), which had a great influence on the English reading public. The Sir Roger de Coverley papers are the most widely read of these essays at the present time.

224. New Timon, published in 1846; a satire in which Tennyson among others was severely lampooned.

237. The comparison suggests Bunyan's journey with his bundle of sin.

252. no clipper and meter: no person who could cut short or measure the moods of the poet.

271. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice may be found in any Greek mythology.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894)

[In 1830] most of our writers were sentimental; a few were profound; and the nation at large began to be deeply agitated over social reforms and political problems. The man who in such a period showed the possibilities of humor, and whose humor was invariably tempered by culture and flavored with kindness, did a service to our literature that can hardly be overestimated."

--WILLIAM J. LONG

Born at Cambridge, Ma.s.s., he was brought up under the sternest type of New England theology. He graduated from Harvard College in 1829 after writing much college verse. It was Lowell who stimulated him to his best work. He himself says, "Remembering some crude contributions of mine to an old magazine, it occurred to me that their t.i.tle might serve for some fresh papers, and so I sat down and wrote off what came into my head under the t.i.tle, 'The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.'" He practiced medicine in Boston and taught Anatomy and Physiology in Harvard until 1882. The latter years of his life were spent happily in Boston, where he died.

The poems by Holmes are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of his works.