(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
Repetition and Parallelism in English Verse; a Study in the Technique of Poetry
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
Charles Alphonso Smith was an American educator and author.
Background
He was born on May 28, 1864 at Greensboro, North Carolina, United States, the son of the Rev. Jacob Henry Smith, Presbyterian minister, and his second wife, Mary Kelly (Watson) Smith, both Virginians. His father's family, though of German ancestry, had been in Virginia for several generations and Jacob Smith had been educated at Washington College.
Education
In the Greensboro public schools Smith was prepared for Davidson College (Davidson, North Carolina), and meanwhile became a friend of the Greensboro drug clerk, William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry. From Davidson he received the degrees of A. B. , 1884, and A. M. , 1887.
He went to Johns Hopkins in 1889 and in 1893 received the degree of Ph. D. , his dissertation being on The Order of Words in Anglo-Saxon Prose (1893). At Louisiana State University, 1893-1902, his gifts as lecturer and teacher clearly emerged.
Career
He taught four years in three little North Carolina towns. Two small books, Repetition and Parallelism in English Verse (1894) and An Old English Grammar (1896), with various articles, represent his literary and scholarly output of these years.
In 1902 he became a professor in the University of North Carolina and soon after first dean of its graduate department. During these years he produced a series of grammars for school use, a thin volume of Studies in English Syntax (1906), An English-German Conversation Book (1902), with Dr. Gustav Kruger, and performed editorial work for the Library of Southern Literature (17 vols. , 1907 - 23).
He reached the fullness of his power and popularity as first Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English in the University of Virginia, 1909-17. During 1910-11 he served as Roosevelt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Berlin, lecturing on American literature in German and conducting a seminar on Poe. Back in Virginia, he was not merely the genial professor.
In 1917 he left Virginia to become head of the English department at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. There he employed his gifts as expounder and interpreter of literature in winning future naval officers to the love of letters. He also continued his editorial and literary activities.
In 1924, suffering a comparatively sudden illness, he died at Annapolis, survived by his wife and children.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Membership
He was a member of the Modern Language Association and of the American Dialect Society.
Personality
He was a superb raconteur and a very able and stimulating lecturer. The basis of his power lay in the fact that he was a delightful human being and that a sure psychological instinct enabled him to communicate his enthusiasms vividly.
Quotes from others about the person
In the words of his memorial tablet at Annapolis, truer than most, "He gave back as rain what he received as mist. "
Connections
He married, November 8, 1905, Susie McGee Heck, of Raleigh; they had two daughters and a son.