Poetry
A Fable for Critics
James Russell Lowell · 1848
Synopsis
Seated in the shade of a laurel, Phoebus, god of poetry, runs through some verses that have just been sent to him and complains of them. A critic joins him, and before them pass the living writers of the country, each sketched in rhymed couplets of a skipping cadence: one is three fifths genius and two fifths pure humbug, another has the polite coldness of an iceberg. Between two portraits, the god mocks the habit of watching for London's verdict and rails against slavery.
Context
The text appeared in 1848 in New York, from George P. Putnam, as a pamphlet and without the author's name, under a subtitle announcing a glance at some literary progeny of the country; the name appears only in later printings. The same year, its author published several other books, including a political satire in verse, and together they made him the most prominent new figure in American letters. The harshest portrait targets Margaret Fuller, under the name of Miranda. The work is given as its ancestor Lord Byron's satire against the Scottish critics.
Who it is for
A long satirical poem in anapestic verse rhymed in couplets, full of allusions to writers now forgotten. The BnF catalogue knows of no French translation.
Prizes and reception
It brought its author immediate fame, and the originality and accuracy of several of its judgements on the writers of his time are still praised.
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