Ernest Fenollosa was born on February 18, 1853, in Salem, Massachusetts, to the Spanish-born Manuel Fenollosa, violinist and music teacher, and a local girl, Mary Silsbee. Manuel had converted to Anglicanism prior to their marriage two years earlier. There is little evidence that Fenollosa's Spanish provenance had any formative effect on his life. He was, however, a rather shy and scholarly boy who wrote poetry from his adolescence. He entered Harvard in the autumn of 1870, and was among the undergraduates founding a Spencer Club. In his graduate years he also discovered Hegel. These two thinkers formed the lodestars of his subsequent intellectual development. Thus, in 1906, in an editorial written in his sixtieth year for

The Golden Age

(a journal he edited), Fenollosa expressed his…

3445 words

Citation: Surette, Leon. "Ernest Francisco Fenollosa". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11819, accessed 19 March 2024.]

11819 Ernest Francisco Fenollosa 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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