America by Claude McKay

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,Stealing my breath of life, I will confessI love this cultured hell that tests my youth.Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,Giving me strength erect against her hate,Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.Yet, as a rebel fronts a king …

Friedrich von Schlegel on Romantic Poetry

Romantic poetry is a progressive, universal poetry . . . It tries to mix and fuse poetry and prose, inspiration and criticism . . . Other kinds of poetry are finished and are now capable of being fully analyzed. The romantic kind of poetry is still in the state of becoming; that, in fact, is …

Tocqueville: Kind of Despotism to Fear

I see an innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn into himself, is virtually a stranger to the fate of all the others. For him, his children and personal friends comprise the entire human race. As for …