Literary values, and other papers — Themes and Context

The Disinterested Reader and the Perils of Fandom

Burroughs divides readers and writers into two camps: the interested and the disinterested. The former seek personal or special ends; the latter pursue general, universal ones. He warns against literary infatuation, arguing that "infatuation is not permissible in literature" and that art must make us "free of the whole." The essay cites Emerson's approving quotation of Shakespeare—"Read what you most affect"—but counters that broad culture demands vigilance against narrow predilections. Burroughs critiques Browning devotees and Whitman disciples who make a cult of their master, noting Whitman himself taught that "the chief lesson to be learned under the master is how to destroy him." This tension between passionate attachment and critical distance runs through the volume.

Poe, Tennyson, and the Ubiquity of True Art

Burroughs argues that Poe outranks the New England poets in the eyes of foreign critics because his work possesses "the ubiquitous character of true art," less pledged to moral or special ends. He calls Poe "a conjurer with words" who used language for its music, citing "The Raven" and "The Bells" as examples of "play, that scorn of personal ends, that potential spiritual energy." By contrast, Tennyson is praised for having "the artist nature in greater measure than Wordsworth," a more flexible receptive spirit that harvests the experiences of other men, not just his own. Burroughs's diction—"ubiquitous," "unpledged æsthetic nature"—reveals his preference for art that transcends the merely personal.

The Relativity of Aesthetic Judgment

Burroughs identifies "the perception of relativity" as one of the latest and most mature perceptions in art. He illustrates this by comparing Longfellow and Whittier: Longfellow's Muse is less in the service of special ideas, less Quaker and Puritan, and therefore finds "a wider and more disinterested audience." The essay also contrasts Gray's "Elegy," filled with "the breadth of universal human life," with Schiller's "Robbers" and Goethe's "Werther," which now seem like "an empty shell picked up on the shore." Burroughs's imagery—shells, shores, fountains—draws on his naturalist's vocabulary, grounding abstract literary theory in concrete, physical metaphors.

Style, Sincerity, and the Writer's Voice

Throughout the collection, Burroughs returns to the relationship between style and the man. He insists that the creative touch marks the artist: "He smites the rocks, and a fountain gushes forth." The essays examine how individual convictions shape or distort literary expression. Burroughs praises disinterestedness not as coldness but as a kind of artistic health that "consoles, not as the priest consoles, but as love and life themselves do." His own prose is measured, aphoristic, and occasionally blunt—he calls Poe's "Annabel Lee" vague and shadowy, its content "as vague and shadowy as its angels and demons." This willingness to judge sharply, yet without malice, gives the criticism a bracing clarity.

Burroughs's essays reward readers who enjoy watching a disciplined mind work through problems of taste and permanence. He does not offer a system but a series of provocations, each grounded in specific examples and a naturalist's eye for proportion. The collection is best approached as a conversation with a thoughtful, occasionally crotchety guide—one who expects you to disagree, but to do so with evidence and self-awareness.