INDEX OF AUTHORS, TITLES, AND FIRST LINES
In the following Inder, the names of authors and titles are printed in capital letters; the first

lines of poems are printed in small letters

INDEX OF AUTHORS, TITLES, AND FIRST LINES

BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF AUTHORS

AGASSIZ, Louis (1807-1873), naturalist and Byron and Shelley, and like them acquired
geologist, was born in Switzerland. He came a love for Italy that became a master passion
to America in 1846, and was so pleased with of his life. He was a great student of romance,
the opportunities the United States offered of art, and of the classics, and many of his
that he decided to settle here permanently. A themes were drawn from these sources. After
year later he was appointed professor of zoology his marriage, in 1846, to Elizabeth Barrett,
and geology at Harvard University. In 1871 herself a poet, Browning spent much time in
he located on the island of Penikese, in Buz- Italy. His entire life was devoted to poetry.
zard's Bay; this island, together with fifty His work falls into three main groups: dramas,
thousand dollars, had been presented to him dramatic monologues, and lyrics. The dramas
for the purpose of endowing a school of natural are original in plot, but they lack action, de-
science devoted to the study of marine zoology. pending for their interest on the analysis of the
Longfellow's poem, “The Fiftieth Birthday of thoughts and feelings of their principal char-
Agassiz,” was read by the author at a dinner acters in some crisis. Pippa Passes and in a
given to Agassiz by the Saturday Club of Balcony are the most famous of the dramas.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1857.

The dramatic monologues are poems of varying
ALLEN, JAMES LANE (1849- ), is a native

length, written as though they were soliloquies

or stories told by one man but suggesting the
of Kentucky. He was graduated from Tran-
sylvania University and became professor of

presence of other characters, and revealing
higher English and Latin in Bethany College,

very clearly the character and motives of the
West Virginia. He now gives his entire atten-

speaker. Of these Browning wrote a great
tion to literature. His home is in New York

number; they are his most distinctive con-

tributions to literature. His lyrics are among
City.

the best in English literature. In all this work
BALL, SIR ROBERT (1840-1913), astronomer Browning's appeal is to thought rather than to
and mathematician, was born in Dublin. He the feelings. He was a keen and vigorous
was graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in thinker, and this quality his works surpasses
1861. Later, he was professor of astronomy his narrative and lyric gifts, great as these were.
in the University of Dublin, and in 1892 be-
came professor of astronomy and geology at

Bryant, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878).

Born in Massachusetts; his parents traced
Cambridge and director of the Cambridge Ob-

their ancestry to the early colonists who came
servatory. Among his works are Experimental
Mechanics, The Story of the Heavens, Starland,

over on the Mayflower; his mother was de-

scended from John and Priscilla Alden, and his
and In Starry Realms.

father, grandfather, and grandmother's father
BARRIE, JAMES M. (1860- ), British

were all country doctors. As a boy, Bryant
author and journalist, was educated at Edin- acted out the story of Poe's translation of the
burgh University. He is best known for his

Iliad, using wooden shields and sword and an
novels and dramas. Barrie's gifts of humor elaborate coat of mail. He was a lover of
and pathos are well shown in A Window in

poetry, and began to write verses when eight
Thrums, a book that portrays the life of his years old. His early education was directed by
native village. Peter Pan is one of his best- country ministers, who were trained in Latin
known dramas.

and Greek. At fourteen, he knew the Greek
BRIGGS, L. B. R., is President of Radcliffe

Testament as well as the English. The next
College and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and

year he entered Williams College as a sopho-
Sciences of Harvard University. He is the

more, but his college course was interrupted
author of a number of books, among them

ecause of lack of means, and he began the
School, College, and Character.

study of law, a profession which he followed for

nine years. His first published poems were
BROWNING, ROBERT (1812-1889). Next to “Thanatopsis” and “Inscription for the En-
Tennyson, the most famous English poet of trance to a Wood,” which appeared in the
the Victorian era; born in a suburb of London;

a

North American Review in 1817. The first of
early education directed by his father, a man these poems, one of the most famous in Ameri-
of wide knowledge and a lover of the classics. can literature, had been written when he was
In his youth, Browning was influenced by only sixteen or seventeen years old. A collec-

tion of his poems appeared in 1821, but had a father and from the careful reading of a very
very small sale. In 1825 he became editor of few books.
a magazine in New York; a year later he began 1784-1786. Life at Mossgiel; plan to emi-
a connection with the New York Evening Post grate to America; publication of first poems.
which, as assistant editor, editor, and part 1786-1788. Edinburgh; preparation of sec-
owner, was destined to last fifty-two years. ond edition of his poems; in the summer of
Various intervals of his life were filled by travel, 1787, travel in the Highlands, collecting songs
chiefly in Europe and the Orient. Many let- and ballads.
ters by him were published in his newspaper. 1788-1791. Ellisland, a farm which he
Bryant wrote comparatively little poetry, and rented; marriage to Jean Armour; customs
destroyed much of what he wrote. In 1866, office secured 1791.
after the death of his wife, he turned to the 1791-1796. Dumfries; third edition of his
study of Homer, publishing his translations of poems; extreme poverty; illness, and failure
the Iliad and the Odyssey in 1870 and 1872. of poetic power. Death, July 21, 1796.
Until the last year of his life he walked daily
to his office and back, a distance of three miles. BYRON, LORD (1788-1824). Born in London,
He wrote many addresses, and took a prominent in a family whose ancestry extended to the
part in all matters that concerned good citizen- time of the Norman Conquest. As a child he
ship. For more than fifty years he exerted a loved oriental romance, travel, the Old Testa-
strong influence on American politics and gov- ment, and the sea. At Harrow, a great English
ernment. Although Bryant never held office, public school, he was a leader in sports and
he occupied a position of national importance extended his reading over a wide range of lit-
as editor of a powerful journal. Nevertheless, erature. In 1805 he entered Trinity College,
it is by his poetry that he will be remembered. Cambridge, and while a student there wrote a
This poetry is not large in amount, but it is of series of poems published in 1808 under the
very high quality. He loved Nature, and her title of Hours in Idleness. The poems were
“various language," of which he wrote in his not very good, and were severely attacked by
first great poem, was familiar to him throughout a famous critic; Byron replied in a verse satire
his long life.

of great power in which he criticized savagely

the leading poets and novelists of his day.
BURNS, ROBERT (1759-1796). The poems In 1809-1811 he traveled in Portugal, Spain,
of Burns appeared in three editions: 1786, Greece, and Turkey; the result of the journey
1787, and 1793. He was inspired by love, by was the appearance of the first two cantos of
keen insight into Nature, by a sturdy patriotism, his famous poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
and by a sense of the brotherhood of all men. Byron himself is the hero of the pilgrimage,
Illustrations of each of these points, with the and the brilliant descriptions of Nature, of
necessary biographical material to make them ruins in famous cities, and of the stirring events
clear, will be found on pages 462-463. Burns in Europe in his own time completely captivated
was an intensely “subjective” poet, that is, the reading public, so that seven editions of the
his poems express his own thought about man

poem were sold within a few weeks after its
and Nature, and are, in themselves, the best first appearance in 1812. The next three years
biography. The facts about his life, therefore, were marked by a series of metrical romances
are of use to us only as they illustrate the poems that eclipsed in popular favor the narrative
and guide us in interpreting them. Many of poems of Scott. In 1815 he married, but a
the poems are bits of autobiography. His year later his wife left him and he went abroad
father was a tenant-farmer; the son followed once more, this time never to return to his
the same hard occupation except for intervals native land. On his way to Italy he spent
in Edinburgh spent in seeing his books through some time (the summer of 1816) in Switzerland,
the press and becoming acquainted with the where he wrote the third canto of Childe Harold
brilliant and intellectual group of men and and some other poems, notably "The Prisoner of
women there who recognized his genius. For Chillon.” These poems all expressed Byron's
some years he received a small income from passionate love of liberty. In Venice he wrote
an office connected with the customs. These the last canto of Childe Harold (1817) and this
statements practically sum up the story; some was followed by other long narrative poems,
important facts, chiefly names of persons and such as Don Juan (1819-1823), and a series of
places, may be set down in a chronological poetic dramas. He had no real dramatic genius,
table as a guide to reading his poems:

however, excelling in verse narrative, descrip-
1759-1784. Boyhood spent on farms rented tion, and in his marvelous lyric genius. Mean-
by his father; small formal schooling; chief time, he sought to become an actor in such
influences from the sturdy character of his stirring scenes as fill his poems, enlisting at