A Fable for Critics was published anonymously by G.P. Putnam in 1848, and it is Lowell’s most enduringly quoted work of criticism — a verse satire in heroic couplets that characterizes the major American writers of the 1840s with a combination of affection, accuracy, and wickedness that has never been surpassed.
The poem takes the form of a fable: Apollo (god of poetry) interviews American writers for a place in his court. Each writer receives a thumbnail characterization in verse: Emerson is “a Greek head on right Yankee shoulders”; Hawthorne has “a fancy so tender / That he lives in a golden morning of thought”; Poe has “two-fifths genius and three-fifths sheer fudge.” These characterizations — brief, brilliant, and impossible to forget — have shaped how subsequent generations think about the Transcendentalist-era writers.
Lowell’s self-portrait (included with characteristic false modesty) admits that he “is striving Parnassus to climb / With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme” — a candid acknowledgment of his own limitations as a poet (too didactic, too eager to teach) that has proved more accurate than any hostile critic’s assessment.
The poem was published in the remarkable year 1848, alongside both The Biglow Papers and The Vision of Sir Launfal — three major works in three different modes (satirical verse, dialect comedy, narrative poetry) that established Lowell’s reputation overnight.
Collecting A Fable for Critics
First edition (G.P. Putnam, New York, 1848): Cloth binding. Published anonymously.
Market values:
- First edition: $150–$400
- Later editions: $15–$40