The Makers of Modern English: A Popular Handbook to the Greater Poets of the CenturyHodder and Stoughton, 1890 - 375 pages |
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Page 6
... spirit whose winged words have fascinated him . He wants to know what relation his poetry has to the other poetry of his time , and what is the true secret of his wayward life . To such a reader the literary middleman is an ambassador ...
... spirit whose winged words have fascinated him . He wants to know what relation his poetry has to the other poetry of his time , and what is the true secret of his wayward life . To such a reader the literary middleman is an ambassador ...
Page 10
... spirit of classic and artistic culture . wholly free from the affectation of their work is so excellent that we are rarely conscious of this defect . Goldsmith reckoned that ten lines of poetry was a good day's work , but Gray ...
... spirit of classic and artistic culture . wholly free from the affectation of their work is so excellent that we are rarely conscious of this defect . Goldsmith reckoned that ten lines of poetry was a good day's work , but Gray ...
Page 11
... spirit was to find a still higher expression ; that writer was William Cowper . The pathetic story of Cowper's life is well known . What a strange contradiction the man seems ! The writer of " John Gilpin " and the " Olney Hymns , " the ...
... spirit was to find a still higher expression ; that writer was William Cowper . The pathetic story of Cowper's life is well known . What a strange contradiction the man seems ! The writer of " John Gilpin " and the " Olney Hymns , " the ...
Page 12
... spirit was crushed beneath the weight of intolerable theological problems - the riddle of " this > unintelligible world . " It was Cowper who introduced the theological element into English poetry , and it has worked ill both for poetry ...
... spirit was crushed beneath the weight of intolerable theological problems - the riddle of " this > unintelligible world . " It was Cowper who introduced the theological element into English poetry , and it has worked ill both for poetry ...
Page 15
... spirit . The beginning of this movement is in Crabbe and Cowper . With the dawn of the Revolution , there rose up poets who uttered the same cry with infinitely greater bitter- ness , and expressed the same spirit with an agonised ...
... spirit . The beginning of this movement is in Crabbe and Cowper . With the dawn of the Revolution , there rose up poets who uttered the same cry with infinitely greater bitter- ness , and expressed the same spirit with an agonised ...
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Common terms and phrases
admirable Arnold Arthur Hallam artistic beauty blank verse breathe Browning Browning's Burns Byron calm charm Coleridge colour criticism death delight despair Divine dreams English poetry excellence expression exquisite faith fame fascination feel force genius George Eliot glory Guinevere Harriet Martineau heart Hood hope human humour ideal imagination impulse influence inspiration intellectual intensity John Keats John of Tours Keats knew Leigh Hunt less literary literature lived Matthew Arnold medieval melody Memoriam mind modern moral Nature ness never noble noblest Paracelsus passion pathetic patriotism perfect phrase picture poems poet poetic purity qualities readers religious reverence Robert Browning Rossetti Scott seems sense Shelley Shelley's simplicity Sordello sorrow soul Southey spirit splendour strength style sweetness Swinburne sympathy Tennyson theme things Thomas Hood thou thought tion touch true truth utterance verse vision voice William Morris woman words Wordsworth writings written wrote
Popular passages
Page 306 - The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven — All's right with the world!
Page 134 - In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible knights of old : We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake ; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.
Page 95 - How exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World Is fitted : — and how exquisitely, too — Theme this but little heard of among men — The external World is fitted to the Mind ; And the creation (by no lower name Can it be called) which they with blended might Accomplish : — this is our high argument.
Page 302 - The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too — So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! "Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! "Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, "But love I gave thee, with myself to love, "And thou must love me who have died for thee!
Page 118 - It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea: Listen!
Page 47 - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
Page 94 - Paradise, and groves Elysian, fortunate fields — like those of old Sought in the Atlantic main — why should they be A history only of departed things, Or a mere fiction of what never was? For the discerning intellect of man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day.
Page 284 - All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist ; Not its semblance but itself; no beauty, nor good nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
Page 95 - I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse Of this great consummation — and, by words Which speak of nothing more than what we are, Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain To noble raptures...
Page 135 - Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired...