Historic Articles by Authors

This is a wonderfully short piece written by Walt Whitman. Honestly the more you know about Whitman the more interesting this subject becomes. The essay was written in 1892.  Living in Brooklyn or New York city from this time forward, my life, then, and still more the following years, was curiously identified with Fulton ferry, […]

VIRTUE is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best, in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features; and that hath rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect. Neither is it almost seen, that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if nature were rather […]

Whitman records their last meeting in journal entries are below. They are fascinating if you are a fan of American poetry. On September 17, 1881 Whitman goes to see Emerson.

The beautiful but barren Hymettus—the whole coast of Attica, her hills and mountains, Pentelicus, Anchesmus, Philopappus, etc., etc.—are in themselves poetical, and would be so if the name of Athens, of Athenians, and her very ruins, were swept from the earth. But am I to be told that the “nature” of Attica would be more […]

The Shakespeare society of New York, which is really about the only useful literary organization in this country, is making vigorous efforts to redress an old wrong and atone for a long neglect. Sunday, Sept. 22, it held a meeting at the Poe cottage

I have just return’d from an old forest haunt, where I love to go occasionally away from parlors, pavements, and the newspapers and magazines—and where, of a clear forenoon, deep in the shade of pines and cedars and

  In 1857 Dickens is believe to have taken these walks. He walked the streets of London at 2 O’clock in the morning. It is said that he had a lot of turmoil in his life at this time. The look at the streets of London in those early days is fascinating. The night streets […]

‘The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems is, I believe, the first volume of poems that Mr. Yeats has published, and it is certainly full of promise.  It must be admitted that many of the poems are too fragmentary, too incomplete.  They read like stray scenes out of unfinished plays, like things only half remembered, […]

The Poet as Prophet James Russell Lowell Poets are the forerunners and prophets of changes in the moral world. Driven by their fine nature to search into and reverently contemplate the universal laws of the soul, they find some fragment of the broken tables of God’s law, and interpret it, half-conscious of its mighty import. […]

This is a wonderful Intro to Wilfred Owens book of poems by  Siegfried Sassoon. If you haven’t read it, you should. It is a awesome little piece of history between 2 poets that had the greatest impact on all poetry that has been written after the Great War. Introduction In writing an Introduction such as […]

“On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature” from The Art of Writing and Other Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson There is nothing more disenchanting to man than to be shown the springs and mechanism of any art.  All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we […]