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A General Survey of American Literature; By Mary Fisher
A General Survey of American Literature By Mary Fisher Author:Mary Fisher General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1899 Original Publisher: A.C. McClurg and Company Subjects: American literature Literary Collections / American / General Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Criticism / American / African American Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the origina... more »l. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING (1780-1842) WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, the leading Unitarian divine of America, says, in his remarks on the " Character and Writings of Fenelon ": -- " It is too true, and a sad truth, that religious books are pre-eminently dull. If we wished to impoverish a man's intellect, we could devise few means more effectual than to confine him to what is called a course of theological reading." Had Channing's own works in any degree deserved this charge of theological dulness; had he stood aloof from his age, indifferent to its interests, yielding neither to its influence nor in turn reacting upon it, -- it would be a great mistake to include him among the representatives of American literature. But he was not only a writer of great vigor and freshness, a thinker of unusual breadth and power, but a man of so marked an influence upon his age that " all America," says Emerson, " would have been impoverished in wanting him." More than any other man, he helped to free New England from the cramping influence of a narrow, dogmatic Puritanism. He not only helped to make literature possible, but he produced literature. His essay on Milton is a noblepiece of work, dwelling with loving minuteness on Milton's lofty virtue, his love of freedom, his magnificent courage in poverty and blindness, and showing an acute, critical appreciation of his poetry and prose. His essay on Bonapa...« less