[177] public mind to himself. The same verses which were received with shouts of laughter when they first appeared in the Dial were treated with respectful attention when colleeted into a volume, and it is possible that some of them may take their places among the classic poems of all literature. It is evident from Emerson's criticisms in the Dial, as that on Ellery Channing's poems, that he had a horror of what he called “French correctness” and could more easily pardon what was rough than what was tame. When it came to passing judgment on the details of poetry, he was sometimes whimsical; his personal favorites were apt to be swans, and, on the other hand, there were whole classes of great writers whom he hardly recognized at all. This was true of Shelley, for example, about whom he wrote “though uniformly a poetic mind, he is never a poet.” About prose writers his estimate was a shade more trustworthy, yet he probably never quite appreciated Hawthorne, and certainly discouraged young people from reading his books. He died May 6, 1882.
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[177] public mind to himself. The same verses which were received with shouts of laughter when they first appeared in the Dial were treated with respectful attention when colleeted into a volume, and it is possible that some of them may take their places among the classic poems of all literature. It is evident from Emerson's criticisms in the Dial, as that on Ellery Channing's poems, that he had a horror of what he called “French correctness” and could more easily pardon what was rough than what was tame. When it came to passing judgment on the details of poetry, he was sometimes whimsical; his personal favorites were apt to be swans, and, on the other hand, there were whole classes of great writers whom he hardly recognized at all. This was true of Shelley, for example, about whom he wrote “though uniformly a poetic mind, he is never a poet.” About prose writers his estimate was a shade more trustworthy, yet he probably never quite appreciated Hawthorne, and certainly discouraged young people from reading his books. He died May 6, 1882.
Boston, New York and Chicago. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.
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