FABLE FOR CRITICS, A. Lowell's 'Fable for Critics,' though considered by the poet himself a mere jeu d'esprit, is the best known and the most successful literary satire in verse by an American. It was written at intervals between November 1847 and July 1848, and was published in October 1848. Its 1,700 lines of galloping anapaestic tetrameter, an ad mirable vehicle for its purpose, present a mix ture of rollicking fun, satire and panegyric. Its title states its purpose. Lowell saw American literary criticism as often unfair and even fool ish and over-dependent on British opinion. His fable presents Apollo, god of poets, delivering Olympian judgment, supposedly unbiased and final, upon American writers; and this fable is addressed to prejudiced and incompetent crit ics and to the undiscerning public. Perhaps a score of the best-known writers of the day are passed upon, with scarcely a verdict so severe as not to be tempered with commendation, and scarcely any praise that is not edged with a little raillery. Though written early in Low ell's career, the poem shows his characteristic independence in literary judgment, his fearless ness and his common sense. His estimate of the works of Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Irving, Cooper and Poe, though antici pating the later and, in some cases, the better work of these 'writers, is remarkably just and has in the main been ratified by posterity. Many of the terse lines stick in the memory: Emerson "a Greek head on right Yankee shoul Cooper, "who's written six volumes to show he's as good as a lord"; Poe, " With his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius, but two-fifths sheer fudge; Who bas written some things quite the best of their land, But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind."
Though Lowell is unfair to Margaret Ful ler and overvalues Maria Child and Sylvester Judd, his perspicacity and fairness are in the main as remarkable as his satire and his fun. The course of the fable is constantly interrupted by digressions; by a fling at literary bores; by satire on dependence upon Great Britain; by scathing but humorous denunciation of slavery; and by a noble eulogy of the Bay State.
In its combination of supernatural machin ery, anapaestic meter and puns, and its use of all these for the purpose of literary satire, 'A Fable for Critics' is not original. Its prede cessors run back for hundreds of years; per haps its immediate ancestor was Leigh Hunt's 'Feast of the Poets.' But its mixture of humor, satire and panegyric is as original as delightful. It is far too long; its fun grows wearisome; much of its flavor has of course been lost through time; but its youthful and effervescent hilarity carries it along in spite of its faults. It still lives through a few wise and witty or noble and brilliant passages. Poe reviewed the poem in The Southern Literary Messenger (February 1849). For the text, with explanatory notes, etc., consult Scudder, 'Complete Poetical Works) • id., 'Russell Low ell, a Biography) (pp. 238-253).