Biography Essay

James Russell Lowell's achievements are impressive from many points of view. Though his lyrical verse was overrated in his own time, his merits as a critic, a satirist, an essayist, an educator, a diplomat, a journalist, and a letter writer continue to be acknowledged by discriminating and knowledgeable critics. The most versatile of the New Englanders at mid century, Lowell, both in his life and his work, is a vital force in the history of American literature and thought during the nineteenth century. Hailed by such dissimilar groups as pacifists and New Humanists, Lowell's final importance has been hard to measure but impossible to ignore. His range and penetration in literary criticism were unequaled in nineteenthcentury America. He did more than anyone before Mark Twain in elevating the vernacular to a medium of serious artistic expression, and The Biglow Papers (1848) ranks among the first of political...