James Russell Lowell: A Biographical Sketch (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from James Russell Lowell: A Biographical Sketch

Poetry, in its essential quality, is disengaged from the products of the ordinary mental facul ties. It is something wholly apart, not a sum mary nor an epigram. It never expounds, comments, nor exhorts. It teaches, if it teaches at all, by what it suggests, by sub tile hints, and by apt parables. It is only a truism to say that poetry is the highest and rarest of the productions of mind. But few poets are wholly poetical, or of imagination all compact. Some dross is fused with their gold. The temptation to discuss is very strong with men who live and bear their part in the world. And it has generally happened that great poetical conceptions have been born in loneliness or in darkness.

The subject of this sketch is one of the most favorable examples of English descent and American culture. As he was born in a time of ferment, both as to literary and theo logic dogmas, he was naturally influenced by the revival which the early part of this cen tury witnessed. He has profited by the liter atures of all nations, but he has been the disciple Of no one literary master. His suc cess in verse is fairly matched by his brilliant and poetical prose; and while he is eminent among scholars, he is at the same time capa ble, discreet, and distinguished among pub lic men. The events of the times in which he has lived, and the changes that have taken place in his own sphere, as will be seen here after, have affected in various ways the pro ductions of his pen.

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