James Russell Lowell

(22 February 1819 – 12 August 1891 / Cambridge, Massachusetts)

poet James Russell Lowell
#205 on top 500 poets
James Russell Lowell
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James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School. He published his first collection of poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. He and his wife had several children, though only one survived past childhood. ... more »

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Quotations

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  • ''I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.''
    James Russell Lowell (1819-91), U.S. poet, editor. Letter, March 4, 1873.
    16 person liked.
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  • ''What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.''
    James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), U.S. poet, editor. Address, October 6, 1884, Birmingham, England. "Democracy," Democracy and Other Addresses (1886)....
    15 person liked.
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  • ''It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further.''
    James Russell Lowell (1819-91), U.S. poet, editor. "Elizabethan Dramatists, Omitting Shakespear: John Webster," Lowell's Early Prose Writings (1902).
    13 person liked.
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  • ''Freedom is the only law which genius knows.''
    James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), U.S. poet, editor. "Elizabethan Dramatists, Omitting Shakespeare: John Webster" (1843), in Lowell's Early Prose Writ...
    11 person liked.
    		19 person did not like.
  • ''Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.''
    James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), U.S. poet, editor. "Nationality in Literature," North American Review (July 1849). Reviewing Longfellow's Kavana...
    15 person liked.
    		13 person did not like.
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Comments about James Russell Lowell

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  • Mevelyn Richardson (12/1/2015 2:23:00 PM)

    I'm looking for the name of a poem by JTL about winter. I remember some words, perhaps not accurate:
    The snow had begun in the gloaming and busily all the night, had been heaping field and byway with a silence deep and bright. Every pine, fir and hemlock wore ermine too deep for an Earl. And the poorest twig on the elm tree was ridged inch deep in pearl.

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Best Poem of James Russell Lowell

Above And Below

I

O dwellers in the valley-land,
Who in deep twilight grope and cower,
Till the slow mountain's dial-hand
Shorten to noon's triumphal hour,
While ye sit idle, do ye think
The Lord's great work sits idle too?
That light dare not o'erleap the brink
Of morn, because 'tis dark with you?

Though yet your valleys skulk in night,
In God's ripe fields the day is cried,
And reapers, with their sickles bright,
Troop, singing, down the mountain-side:
Come up, and feel what health there is
In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes,
As, bending ...

Read the full of Above And Below

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