Quotes from work
A Fable for Critics

James Russell Lowell

A Fable for Critics is a book-length poem by American writer James Russell Lowell, first published anonymously in 1848. The poem made fun of well-known poets and critics of the time and brought notoriety to its author.

“There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on;
Whose prose is grand verse while his verse the Lord knows
Is some of it pr— No, 't is not even prose!”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

Pt. I - Emerson, st. 1
A Fable for Critics (1848)

“In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;
A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak,
If you've once found the way you've achieved the grand stroke.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

Pt. I - Emerson, st. 1
A Fable for Critics (1848)

“For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis odd
He leaves never a doorway to get in a god.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

A Fable for Critics (1848)

“There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

Pt. VI - Poe and Longfellow, st. 1
A Fable for Critics (1848)

“And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak,
Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

Pt. V - Cooper, st. 3
A Fable for Critics (1848)

“A reading-machine, always wound up and going,
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

Prologue, st. 7
A Fable for Critics (1848)

“Nature fits all her children with something to do,
He who would write and can't write, can surely review.”

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics

A Fable for Critics (1848)

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