James Russell Lowell

Lowell, James Russell 

Born Feb. 22, 1819, in Cambridge, Mass.; died there, Aug. 12, 1891. American poet, critic, and journalist.

From 1857 to 1866, Lowell edited a number of journals that supported abolitionism. Lowell’s two-volume collection of verse pamphlets and feuilletons, The Biglow Papers (1848-67), became widely known. The first series of pamphlets was directed against the aggressive war carried on by the USA against Mexico (1846-48); the second, concerned with the Civil War between North and South, expressed the patriotic feelings of democratic Northerners.

Lowell became a professor at Harvard University in 1855. Between 1864 and 1872 he published a series of critical essays on writers of the past, including Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Toward the end of his life, conservative elements in Lowell’s social and political views became stronger.

WORKS

Complete Writings, vols. 1-16. Cambridge, 1904.
In Russian translation:
“Stansy o svobode.” In the anthology Sever. Arkhangelsk, 1957. No. 18. Translated by V. Fedotov.
“Svatovstvo.” In Amerikanskie poety. Moscow, 1969. Translated by M. Zenkevich.

REFERENCES

Istoriia amerikanskoi literatury, vol. 1. Moscow, 1947.
Brooks, V. W. Pisatel’ i amerikanskaia zhizn’. vol. 1. Moscow, 1967. (Translated from English.)
McGlinchee, C. J. R. Lowell. New York [1967].