SOURCE: Altick, Richard D. “Was Lowell an Historical Critic?” American Literature 14, no. 3 (November 1942): 250-59.

In the following essay, Altick counters the usual claim that Lowell's critical theory lacks historical perspective.

If,” wrote James Russell Lowell in his essay on Milton, “Goethe was right in saying that every man was a citizen of his age as well as of his country, there can be no doubt that in order to understand the motives and conduct of the man we must first make ourselves intimate with the time in which he lived.”¹ The observation is one of many such made in the course of Lowell's critical writings. And the neglect with which his remarks in this vein have been treated accounts, it seems to me, for the persistent and erroneous idea that Lowell was virtually unaware of the importance of historical perspective in formulating a critical judgment.

This charge of...