What I Think of These Three Writers by Edgar Allen Poe OF WILLIS, BRYANT, HALLECK, AND MACAULAY Whatever may be thought of Mr. Willis’s talents, there can be no doubt about the fact that, both as an author and as a man, he has made a good deal of noise in the world—at least for […]
Classic Articles on Writing
POETRY AND PAINTING COMPARED by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
The first person who compared painting and poetry with one another was a man of refined feeling, who became aware of a similar effect produced upon himself by both arts. He felt both represent what is absent as if it were present, and appearance as if it were reality; that both deceived, and that the […]
POETRY AND NATIONALITY by James Russell Lowell
POETRY AND NATIONALITY[1] by James Russell Lowell This article first appeared in the North American Review in 1868 One of the dreams of our earlier horoscope-mongers was, that a poet should come out of the West, fashioned on a scale somewhat proportioned to our geographical pretensions. Our rivers, forests, mountains, cataracts, prairies, and inland seas […]
THE STORY-TELLER AND HIS ART by Sir Richard Steele
THE STORY-TELLER AND HIS ART by Sir Richard Steele I have often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a poet. It is, I think, certain, that some men have such a peculiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination […]
Introduction from Short Story Writing
The following is taken from the book Short Story Writing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Story Story by Charles Raymond Barrett, Ph. B. (1898) The short story was first recognized as a distinct class of literature in 1842, when Poe’s criticism of Hawthorne called attention to the new form of fiction. Short […]
COMMON-SENSE IN ART by Oscar Wilde
At this critical moment in the artistic development of England Mr. John Collier has come forward as the champion of common-sense in art. It will be remembered that Mr. Quilter, in one of his most vivid and picturesque metaphors, compared Mr. Collier’s method as a painter to that of a shampooer in a Turkish bath. […]