James Russell Lowell And England

Contemporary Review, July, 2000 by Brendan Rapple

Even a cursory perusal of James Russell Lowell's life and writings reveals his extensive cosmopolitan intellectual and literary leanings. He was a consummate social, political, and literary critic. As we have seen, much of his criticism of certain views of England's inhabitants was distinctly negative, especially what he perceived to be their political chauvinism and frequently misguided intellectual arrogance. Still, one may readily discern his manifest enjoyment, approval, and even love of much that was English. Above all, though he consistently and earnestly espoused the merits of America's literary figures, he always recognized the breadth and depth of England's literary heritage. Nevertheless, despite his long visit, in England as well as on the Continent, Lowell lost not a whit of his Americanism. As he asked rhetorically in 1876: 'If I am not an American, who ever was?' Above all, he always remained very proud of and deeply rooted in his New England background. Consequently, it is perhaps not surprisi ng that his extensive Continental and English experiences left this Massachusetts Brahmin 'convinced that with all our faults (and nobody is better aware of them or feels them more keenly) we are the happiest and most civilized people on the face of the Earth'.

Brendan A. Rapple is a librarian at Boston College, Massachusetts.