Studies in Classic American Literature"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." ― D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) by D. H. Lawrence is considered culturally important to Western culture in its literary criticism of multiple American authors: Benjamin Franklin, Poe, Melville, Whitman, and Fenimore Cooper, among others. Even though the prose is informal, the ideas are lofty. Lawrence's writing highlights the American consciousness found in eighteenth and nineteenth century literature and is a must-read for lovers of history and the timeless authors of classic American literature. |
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ache Ahab artist beautiful belief Benjamin bird Blithedale Romance blood body Cape Horn captain Chingachgook consciousness Cooper Crèvecœur Dana dark death deep Deerslayer democracy devil Dimmesdale disintegrating Dodge Doom earth ecstasy Effingham escaped Europe European evil eyes Father feel Fenimore fight flogged Franklin ghastly gods hate Hester Holy Ghost human ideal idealist Indian inside Ishmael kill knew Lake Champlain Leatherstocking Ligeia living look lust master Melville merging Moby Dick moral mortem effects mother mystery mystic myth naked Nathaniel Natty Bumppo natural ness never old skin Omoo open road passion Pearl Pequod perfect pure Queequeg savages Scarlet Letter seems sensual Septimus ship sort soul South Sea spirit strange superior syphilis thing tion true turn vast Venus de Milo vibrations Walt wanted white American white whale Whitman wild woman women worship writhe
Popular passages
Page 106 - And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued. Out - out are the lights - out all! And over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, And the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,' And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
Page 17 - Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; ie, waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
Page 232 - I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern.
Page 106 - Divine Father! — shall these things be undeviatingly so? — shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel in Thee? Who — who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.
Page 115 - For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold ; then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and, in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.
Page 18 - Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. CHASTITY Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
Page 134 - Hush, Hester, hush!" said he, with tremulous solemnity. " The law we broke ! the sin here so awfully revealed ! Let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be that when we forgot our God, when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul, it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter in an everlasting and pure reunion.
Page 218 - I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.
Page 237 - Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
Page 9 - Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.