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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 
Biography: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 

The insistent moral tone, sentimentality, and serene idealism of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) made him an extremely popular author at home and abroad in the 19th century.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on Feb. 27, 1807, of an established New England family. He attended Portland Academy and then Bowdoin College, graduating in 1825. He was an excellent student whose skill in languages led the trustees at Bowdoin (of which his father was one) to offer the young graduate a professorship of modern languages. He prepared himself further with study abroad (at his own expense) before undertaking his duties.

Young Writer

During Longfellow's 3 years in Europe his lifelong rapport with Old World civilization was firmly established. He returned home in 1829 and 2 years later married Mary Storer Potter. In 1833 he published Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea, a collection of picturesque travel essays modeled after Washington Irving's Sketch Book.

In 1834 Longfellow accepted a professorship at Harvard but did not take up his duties until 1837, after he had completed a tour of European and Scandinavian countries. During this trip his wife died. While staying at Heidelberg, he came under the spell of the works of the German romantic poet Novalis, whose moody, mystical nocturnalism struck a responsive chord in the grieving Longfellow. On his return to Cambridge he settled in Craigie House.

In 1839 Longfellow published the sentimental prose romance Hyperion and his first volume of poetry, Voices of the Night. In Hyperion he rather indiscreetly told the story of his pursuit of Frances Appleton, whom he had met in Europe soon after his wife's death. In 1843, after a 7-year courtship, they were married. Her father, a wealthy Boston merchant, gave them Craigie House as a wedding present. This house became a famous visiting place for Longfellow's admirers.

Early Poetry

The poem "Hymn to the Night, " in Voices of the Night, conveys Longfellow's debt to Novalis and his romantic kinship with the "calm, majestic presence of the Night." However, "A Psalm of Life, " one of the best-known poems from this first volume, reflects the influence of the famed German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose dynamic philosophy suggested to Longfellow the direction of his rather moralizing and trite hymn to action: "Life is real! Life is earnest!/… Be not like dumb, driven cattle!/Be a hero in the strife." Voices of the Night was well received, and within a few years 43, 000 copies had been sold. Long-fellow's audience as a popular writer was assured.

Longfellow's next volume, Ballads and Other Poems (1842), contained two strong narrative poems, "The Wreck of the Hesperus" and "The Skeleton in Armor, " as well as the sentimental verses "Maidenhood" and "The Rainy Day" ("Into each life some rain must fall, / Some days must be dark and dreary") and the moralizing poem "The Village Blacksmith."

After a trip to Europe in 1842 Longfellow published Poems on Slavery (1842) and The Spanish Student: A Play in Three Acts (1843). In 1845 two volumes of poetry appeared: the anthology The Waif, to which Longfellow contributed the poem "The Day Is Done, " and The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems. Several poems in this second collection reflect Longfellow's deep attachment to the traditions of Old World culture. In addition, this volume contained the popular "The Old Clock on the Stairs, " "The Arrow and the Song, " "The Arsenal at Springfield, " "The Bridge, " and one of his best sonnets, "Mezzo Cammin."

Epic Poems

Longfellow achieved a national reputation with the publication of Evangeline (1847), a highly sentimental narrative poem on the expulsion of the French from Acadia. He wrote Evangeline in dactylic hexameters, a meter which in English tends toward monotony and prosiness. Nevertheless, the book was enthusiastically received. Next came the pedestrian romantic novel Kavanagh (1849) and By the Seaside and the Fireside (1850), which contained the very popular nationalistic poem "The Building of the Ship": "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!/ Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!"

In 1854 Longfellow resigned his Harvard professorship to devote himself to his writing career. A year later he published The Song of Hiawatha, a narrative epic poem on the Native American. For this work Longfellow drew on Henry Schoolcraft's books on the Native American; he borrowed the trochaic meter from a Finnish epic. In short order, he repeated the success of Hiawatha with The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).

Major Projects in Later Years

Following the tragic death of his second wife in a fire in their home in 1861, Longfellow busied himself with the Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), in which various speakers, sitting around a fireplace, narrate stories. Other tales appeared in 1872 and 1873. He also completed a major project, his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1865-1867).

In the last phase of his long career, Longfellow worked on another major project, The Christus: A Mystery. Completed in 1872, this work was concerned with" various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages." An earlier work, The Golden Legend (1851), formed part II; part III, The New England Tragedies (1868), dealt with Puritan themes; and, finally, part I, The Divine Tragedy (1871), concerned the life of Christ. Several more volumes of verse were issued before his death on March 24, 1882.

Further Reading

The standard one-volume edition of The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was edited by H. E. Scudder (1893). The standard biography is by the poet's brother, Samuel Longfellow, Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Extracts from His Journals and Correspondence (2 vols., 1886). Another useful biography is Edward Charles Wagenknecht, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: A Full-length Portrait (1955). The first half of Cecil B. Williams, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1968), is biographical, and the second half critically examines the prose and poetry.

Important studies of Longfellow are James Taft Hatfield, New Light on Longfellow, with Special Reference to His Relations to Germany (1933); Lawrence Thompson, Young Longfellow, 1807-1843 (1938); and Newton Arvin, Longfellow: His Life and Work (1963). Odell Shepard's introduction to Representative Selections (1934) is excellent, as is Gay Wilson Allen's chapter on Longfellow's poetic techniques in American Prosody (1935). Recommended for general background are Roy Harvey Pearce, The Continuity of American Poetry (1961), and Hyatt H. Waggoner, American Poets: From the Puritans to the Present (1968).

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (credit: Historical Pictures Service, Chicago)
(born Feb. 27, 1807, Portland, Mass., U.S. — died March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. poet. Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College and traveled in Europe before joining the modern-language faculties of Bowdoin (1829 – 35) and Harvard (1836 – 54). His Voices of the Night (1839), containing "The Psalm of Life" and "The Light of the Stars," first won him popularity. Ballads and Other Poems (1841), including "The Wreck of the Hesperus" and "The Village Blacksmith," swept the nation, as did his long poem Evangeline (1847). With Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), including "Paul Revere's Ride," he became the best-loved American poet of the 19th century. He later translated Dante's Divine Comedy (1867) and published his intended masterpiece, Christus, a trilogy on Christianity (1872). The hallmarks of his verse are gentleness, simplicity, and an idealized vision of the world.

For more information on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, visit Britannica.com.

 
US History Companion: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
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(1807-1882), poet and translator. The most popular poet of his day and the first American poet to make an adequate living at his profession, Longfellow is now largely dismissed as a writer of little depth, whose work was rendered artificial and sentimental by his alliance with the privileged society of Victorian Boston and Cambridge.

A professor of modern European languages first at Bowdoin College in his native Maine and, after 1836, at Harvard, he established himself as a lyric poet with Voices of the Night (1839), which contains one of his most famous poems, "The Psalm of Life." This volume was followed by Ballads and Other Poems (1841), which includes such well-known works as "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Skeleton in Armor," "The Village Blacksmith," and "Excelsior." His Poems on Slavery (1842), a nod to the antislavery movement prompted by his liberal Unitarian values, was dedicated to William Ellery Channing. For the most part, however, unlike John Greenleaf Whittier, he kept his poetical vocation separate from matters of conscience and wrote most often and compellingly on nostalgic and picturesque themes. In 1847 he published Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie, the first in a series of popular narrative poems on American historical subjects, which he continued after his resignation from Harvard in 1854; these include The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and the verse dramas of The New England Tragedies (1868). His early prose works, Outre-Mer (1833-1835) and Hyperion (1839), imitate Washington Irving and exploit the popular interest in romantic travel literature; Kavanagh (1849), a New England tale, was his last venture in prose fiction.

Longfellow, who commanded a dozen languages, was an accomplished translator, eager to instruct American audiences in the riches of European literature. His Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845), the first anthology of its kind in America, and his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1867), were the most significant results of this cultural retailing.

His immense popularity was a complex phenomenon, resulting partly from his own shrewd marketing of his literary wares but rather more from the fact that his well-crafted, usually mellifluous poems challenged no one's prejudices. In many subtle ways he was perfectly attuned to the needs of his middle-class American audience, both in the Unitarian stoicism of his overt moralizing and in the unquestioning (and apparently unconscious) support that he gave to some central myths of his culture. His celebration of female fidelity and subservience ("the beauty and strength of woman's devotion") in such works as Evangeline and The Golden Legend (1851) authoritatively romanticized what the women's movement was rejecting. Similarly, Longfellow's picturesque rendition of the passing of Indian culture in Hiawatha arguably made the plight of Native Americans seem, to his white audience, comfortably inevitable. Much the same could be said of his treatment of Jews in "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport."

Longfellow's historical importance may lie in his having legitimized the writing of poetry as a profession in America, in his having assisted the career of Nathaniel Hawthorne, his Bowdoin College classmate, with an influential review of Twice-told Tales, and in a dozen or so minor poems of lasting value, including "Seaweed," "The Fire of Driftwood," "The Ropewalk," "Palingenesis," and a number of fine sonnets.

Bibliography:

Newton Arvin, Longfellow: His Life and Work (1963); Edward Wagenknecht, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: His Poetry and Prose (1986).

Author:

Albert J. von Frank

See also Literature.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body of romantic American legends. Descended from an established New England family, after college he spent the next three years in Europe, preparing himself for a professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin, where he taught from 1829 to 1835. After the death of his young wife in 1835, Longfellow traveled again to Europe, where he met Frances Appleton, who was to become his second wife after a long courtship. She was the model for the heroine of his prose romance, Hyperion (1839). From 1836 to 1854, Longfellow was professor of modern languages at Harvard, and during these years he became one of an intellectual triumvirate that included Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell. Although a sympathetic and ethical person, Longfellow was uninvolved in the compelling religious and social issues of his time; he did, however, display interest in the abolitionist cause. He achieved great fame with long narrative poems such as Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), which included “Paul Revere's Ride.” In all of these works he used unusual, “antique” rhythms to weave myths of the American past. His best-known shorter poems include “The Village Blacksmith,” “Excelsior,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” “A Psalm of Life,” and “A Cross of Snow.” Although he was highly praised and successful in his lifetime, Longfellow's literary reputation has declined in the 20th cent. His unorthodox meters, while contributing to the unique effects of his poems, have been much parodied, and many critics have viewed harshly his simple, sentimental, often moralizing verse. Longfellow made a poetic translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1867), for which he wrote a sequence of six outstanding sonnets. After his death, he was the first American whose bust was placed in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Bibliography

See his letters (ed. by A. Hilen, 4 vol., 1967–72); biographies by his brother, Samuel (3 vol., 1891; repr. 1969), T. W. Higginson (1902, repr. 1973), and N. Arvin (1963); studies by C. B. Williams (1964) and E. C. Wagenknecht (1986).

 
Works: Works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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(1807-1882)

1833Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea. The author's first prose book is a series of travel essays similar to Washington Irving's Sketch Book. Drawn from the author's travels in Europe, the book is published anonymously and is well received by the public and critics.
1839Hyperion: A Romance. The author's most vigorous prose work is autobiographical, proceeding from his study of German Romanticism. The narrative follows Paul Fleming, who travels about Europe in search of the elusive blue rose, a German mythical symbol of the unobtainable. Although achieving only moderate success and sometimes antagonistic reviews at the time, the work would find an audience with later American travelers in Europe.
1839Voices of the Night. The author's first book of original poetry is a collection of works previously published in magazines. Containing inspirational poems such as "A Psalm of Life" and "Light of the Stars," the popular book supports Longfellow's opinion that poetry should be "an instrument for improving the condition of society, and advancing the great purpose of human happiness."
1841Ballads and Other Poems. Longfellow's second book of poems includes major and popular works such as "The Village Blacksmith," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "Elcelsior," and "The Skeleton in Armor," works that help establish him as one of the leading poets of the era.
1842Poems on Slavery. A collection of poems written to demonstrate Longfellow's approval of the abolitionist movement, motivated by his Unitarian beliefs. The collection is dedicated to William Ellery Channing, and Longfellow allows the New England Anti-Slavery Tract Society to reprint and distribute the poems freely.
1843The Spanish Student. Longfellow's poetic drama boosts his literary fame. In it, a dancing gypsy is courted by a gentleman who marries her after it is discovered that she is actually the daughter of a nobleman who had been stolen by the gypsies. Edgar Allan Poe's review of the drama accuses Longfellow of plagiarism of his drama Politian (1835-1836).
1845The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems. A collection containing many verses published earlier in Graham's. Some of the poems were inspired by the author's European travels, including the title poem "The Belfry of Bruges," "Nuremberg," "The Norman Baron," and "Walter von der Vogelweid." Also notable are "The Bridge," in which the poet considers his numerous travels over the Charles River; "The Arsenal at Springfield," which compares a cannon to an organ; and "The Arrow and the Song," in which he compares writing poetry to shooting arrows.
1846"Seaweed." Longfellow's poem offers the poet's conception of the poetic process in which the "storms of wild emotion" produce "some fragment of a song" like seaweed tossed onto shore.
1847Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. A verse romance of Acadian lovers who are separated on their wedding day when the English expel French Canadian settlers from Nova Scotia. Hugely successful, the poem establishes Longfellow's popular reputation and stands among the most highly praised poems of the nineteenth century.
1849Kavanagh: A Tale. Longfellow's final major prose publication tells the story of two friends who both fall in love with the village's new pastor. Although it receives mixed reviews and is not considered among his finer works, it wins favor with Emerson and Hawthorne.
1849Seaside and the Fireside. Longfellow's popular collection contains "The Fire of Driftwood," "The Secret of the Sea," and, most notably, "The Building of the Ship," a pro-Union allegory, which would win fame in dramatic readings by Fanny Kemble and attract the favor of Abraham Lincoln. Thirty thousand copies of the book sell in five years.
1851The Golden Legend. Longfellow completes what would become the middle section of Christus: A Mystery (1872), the trilogy of dramatic poems providing an imaginative history of Christianity from its beginning (The Divine Tragedy, 1871), through the Middle Ages, to the time of the Puritans (The New England Tragedies, 1868).
1855The Song of Hiawatha. A narrative poem depicting numerous Indian legends through the adventures of the fictionalized Hiawatha. It is Longfellow's most popular work and would sell more than fifty thousand copies by 1860. The meter of the poem was adapted from the Finnish epic Kalevala. Longfellow used the writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the Reverend John Heckewelder, and George Catlin as source material.
1858The Courtship of Miles Standish. Narrative poem about the captain of the Plymouth colony who sends his friend John Alden to ask for the hand of Priscilla. Priscilla desires John, and when they hear that Miles has been killed in battle, the couple plan their wedding. On the eve of the nuptials Miles returns but gives his blessing to the betrothed. The poem sells fifteen thousand copies the first day it is available.
1860"The Children's Hour." Longfellow's celebration of the delights provided by his small daughters proves to be one of his most popular works.
1861"Paul Revere's Ride." A narrative poem describing how Revere received the signal from the Old North Church and heralded news of the British approach from Boston to Lexington and Concord. In reality, Revere did not wait for a lantern signal, nor did he announce the British approach in Concord; nevertheless, the ballad grew into an American legend. Opening Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), it would become the most popular piece in the collection.
1863Tales of a Wayside Inn. Longfellow publishes the first of three collections of narrative poems (a second would appear in 1872 and a third in 1874, collected in 1886) told by individuals gathered at a fireside of a New England tavern. Although stories set in Europe predominate, the most popular tales are those with American settings and themes, including "Paul Revere's Ride," which opens the book; "The Birds of Killingworth," about the vengeance a horde of caterpillars takes on Connecticut farmers who kill small birds that destroy their crops; and "The Theologian's Tale," a romance set among the Pennsylvania Quakers.
1865Divine Comedy. Longfellow issues the first of his blank-verse translations of Dante's poem (completed in 1867). He would meet regularly with James Russell Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton to discuss his work and seek their assistance. The sonnets written to precede and follow each of the three parts of Dante's poem are generally regarded as among Longfellow's best works.
1868The New England Tragedies. This is the third section of Longfellow's verse drama trilogy comprising Christus (1872), his history of Christianity in the form of medieval mystery plays. This section consists of two dramas: in "John Endicott," Longfellow traces the persecution of the Quakers by the Puritans; in "Giles Corey of the Salem Farms," Longfellow treats the Salem witchcraft hysteria.
1871The Divine Tragedy. The last completed but the first section of Longfellow's verse drama trilogy comprising Christus (1872), a history of Christianity. It dramatizes Christ's Passion and its effects on key New Testament figures.
1872Christus: A Mystery. The poet would regard this dramatic sequence as his greatest achievement. It brings together The Divine Tragedy (1871), The Golden Legend (1851), and The New England Tragedies (1868). Longfellow also publishes the second part of Tales of a Wayside Inn.
1874Tales of a Wayside Inn. The third and final installment of Longfellow's poetic narrative series is published. It contains "Emma and Eginhard," about a king's daughter who outwits her overprotective father.
1875The Masque of Pandora. The collection includes Longfellow's poem "Morituri Salutamus" in heroic couplets. Written for the fiftieth reunion of his class at Bowdoin College, it eulogizes the college and the past and expresses Longfellow's philosophy of seizing all the opportunities that life affords.
1878Keramos and Other Poems. The title poem, regarded as among Longfellow's best, links the poet's boyhood interests with his later travels to present his poetic principles.
1880Ultima Thule. The collection that Longfellow had intended as his last contains farewell lyrics such as "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" and "L'Envoi: The Poet and His Song." Enough uncollected poems would be available, however, to form a second volume, In the Harbor, Ultima Thule-- Part 2, issued posthumously in 1882. It includes Longfellow's final composition, "The Bells of San Blas."
1883Michael Angelo. A fragment of a projected poetic drama, Longfellow's last major poem appears posthumously.

 
Quotes By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Quotes:

"Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age."

"I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding."

"For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress, and as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day."

"To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be."

"Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted."

"Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall."

See more famous quotes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 
Wikipedia: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow in 1868 by Julia Margaret Cameron
Born February 27, 1807(1807-02-27)
Portland, Maine, United States
Died March 24, 1882 (aged 75)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation Poet
Professor
Literary movement Romanticism
Signature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American educator and poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former headquarters of George Washington. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns from her dress catching fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He died in 1882.

Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.

Contents

Life and work

Early life and education

Birthplace in c. 1910

Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807, to Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow in Portland, Maine,[1] then a district of Massachusetts,[2] and he grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. His father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress.[3] He was named after his mother's brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who died only three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli.[4] Young Longfellow was the second of eight children;[5] his siblings were Stephen (1805), Elizabeth (1808), Anne (1810), Alexander (1814), Mary (1816), Ellen (1818), and Samuel (1819).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was enrolled in a dame school at the age of three and by age six was enrolled at the private Portland Academy. In his years there, he earned a reputation as being very studious and became fluent in Latin.[6] His mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote.[7] He printed his first poem — a patriotic and historical four stanza poem called "The Battle of Lovell's Pond" — in the Portland Gazette on November 17, 1820.[8] He stayed at the Portland Academy until the age of fourteen. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Peleg's farm in the western Maine town of Hiram.

In the fall of 1822, the 15-year old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, alongside his brother Stephen.[6] His grandfather was a founder of the college[9] and his father was a trustee.[6] There, Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would later become his lifelong friend.[10] He boarded with a clergyman for a time before rooming on the third floor of what is now Maine Hall in 1823.[11] He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings.[12] In his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations:

I will not disguise it in the least... the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it, and every earthly thought centres in it... I am almost confident in believing, that if I can ever rise in the world it must be by the exercise of my talents in the wide field of literature.[13]

He pursued his literary goals by submitting poetry and prose to various newspapers and magazines, partly due to encouragement from a professor named Thomas Cogswell Upham.[14] Between January 1824 and his graduation in 1825, he had published nearly 40 minor poems.[15] About 24 of them appeared in the short-lived Boston periodical The United States Literary Gazette.[12] When Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin, he was ranked fourth in the class and gave the student commencement address.[14]

European tours and professorships

After graduating in 1825, he was offered a job as professor of modern languages at his alma mater. The story, possibly apocryphal, is that an influential trustee, Benjamin Orr, had been so impressed by Longfellow's translation of Horace that he was hired under the condition that he travel to Europe to study French, Spanish, and Italian.[16] Whatever the motivation, he began his tour of Europe in May 1826 aboard the ship Cadmus.[17] His time abroad would last three years and cost his father $2,604.24.[18] He traveled to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, back to France, then England before returning to the United States in mid-August 1829.[19] While overseas, he learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, mostly without formal instruction.[20] In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the author's work ethic.[21] Irving encouraged the young Longfellow to pursue writing.[22] While in Spain, Longfellow was saddened to learn his favorite sister, Elizabeth, had died of tuberculosis at the age of 20 that May while he was abroad.[23]

On August 27, 1829, he wrote to the president of Bowdoin that he was turning down the professorship because he considered the $600 salary "disproportionate to the duties required". The trustees raised his salary to $800 with an additional $100 to serve as the college's librarian, a post which required one hour of work per day.[24] During his years teaching at the college, he wrote textbooks in French, Italian, and Spanish;[25] his first published book was in 1833, a translation of the poetry of medieval Spanish poet Jorge Manrique.[26] He also published a travel book, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, first published in serial form before a book edition was released in 1835.[25] Shortly after the book's publication, Longfellow attempted to join the literary circle in New York and asked George Pope Morris for an editorial role at one of Morris's publications. Longfellow was considering moving to New York after New York University considered offering him a newly-created professorship of modern languages, though there would be no salary. The professorship was not created and Longfellow agreed to continue teaching at Bowdoin.[27] Nevertheless, he did not enjoy his time at Bowdoin, especially correcting exams and papers. He wrote, "I hate the sight of pen, ink, and paper... I do not believe that I was born for such a lot. I have aimed higher than this".[28]

Mary Storer Potter became Longfellow's first wife in 1831 and died four years later.

On September 14, 1831, Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter, a childhood friend from Portland.[29] The couple settled in Brunswick, though the two were not happy there.[30] Longfellow published several nonfiction and fiction prose pieces inspired by Irving, including "The Indian Summer" and "The Bald Eagle" in 1833.[31]

In December 1834, Longfellow received a letter from Josiah Quincy III, president of Harvard College, offering him the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages position with the stipulation that he spend a year or so abroad.[32] There, he further studied German as well as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic.[33] In October 1835, during the trip, his wife Mary had a miscarriage about six months into her pregnancy.[34] She did not recover and died after several weeks of illness at the age of 22 on November 29, 1835. Longfellow had her body embalmed immediately and placed into a lead coffin inside an oak coffin which was then shipped to Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston.[35] He was deeply saddened by her death, writing "One thought occupies me night and day... She is dead—She is dead! All day I am weary and sad".[36] Three years later, he was inspired to write the poem "Footsteps of Angels" about her. Several years later, he wrote the poem "Mezzo Cammin" to express his sorrow over her death.[37]

When he returned to the United States in 1836, Longfellow took up the professorship at Harvard. He was required to live in Cambridge to be close to the campus and rented rooms at the Craigie House in the spring of 1837,[38] now preserved as the Longfellow National Historic Site. The home, built in 1759, had once been the headquarters of George Washington during the Siege of Boston beginning in July 1775.[39] Previous boarders also included Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, and Joseph Emerson Worcester.[40] Longfellow began publishing his poetry, including the collection Voices of the Night in 1839.[41] The bulk of Voices of the Night, Longfellow's debut book of poetry, was translations though he also included nine original poems and seven poems he had written as a teenager.[42] Ballads and Other Poems was published shortly thereafter in 1841[43] and included "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus", which were instantly popular.[44] Longfellow also became part of the local social scene, creating a group of friends who called themselves the Five of Clubs. Members included Cornelius Conway Felton, George Stillman Hillard, and Charles Sumner, the latter of whom would become Longfellow's closest friend over the next 30 years.[45] As a professor, Longfellow was well-liked, though he disliked being "constantly a playmate for boys" rather than "stretching out and grappling with men's minds."[46]

Courtship of Frances Appleton

After a seven-year courtship, Longfellow married Frances Appleton in 1843.

Longfellow began courting Frances "Fanny" Appleton, the daughter of a wealthy Boston industrialist, Nathan Appleton[47] and sister of Thomas Gold Appleton. At first, she was not interested but Longfellow was determined. In July 1839, he wrote to a friend: "[V]ictory hangs doubtful. The lady says she will not! I say she shall! It is not pride, but the madness of passion".[48] His friend George Stillman Hillard encouraged Longfellow in the pursuit: "I delight to see you keeping up so stout a heart for the resolve to conquer is half the battle in love as well as war".[49] During the courtship, Longfellow frequently walked from Cambridge to the Appleton home in Beacon Hill in Boston by crossing the Boston Bridge. That bridge was subsequently demolished and replaced in 1906 by a new bridge, which was eventually renamed the Longfellow Bridge.

During his courtship, Longfellow continued writing and, in the fall of 1839, published Hyperion, a book in prose inspired by his trips abroad[48] and his unsuccessful courtship of Fanny Appleton.[50] Amidst this, Longfellow fell into "periods of neurotic depression with moments of panic" and took a six-month leave of absence from Harvard to attend a health spa at Marienberg in Germany.[50] After returning, Longfellow published a play in 1836, The Spanish Student, reflecting his memories from his time in Spain in the 1820s.[51] There was some confusion over its original manuscript. After being printed in Graham's Magazine, its editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold saved the manuscript from the trash. Longfellow was surprised to hear that it had been saved, unusual for a printing office, and asked to borrow it so that he could revise it, forgetting to return it to Griswold. The often vindictive Griswold wrote an angry letter in response.[52]

A small collection, Poems on Slavery, was published in 1842 as Longfellow's first public support of abolitionism. However, as Longfellow himself wrote, the poems were "so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast".[53] A critic for The Dial agreed, calling it "the thinnest of all Mr. Longfellow's thin books; spirited and polished like its forerunners; but the topic would warrant a deeper tone".[54] The New England Anti-Slavery Association, however, was satisfied with the collection enough to reprint it for further distribution.[55]

On May 10, 1843, after seven years, Longfellow received a letter from Fanny Appleton agreeing to marry him and, too restless to take a carriage, walked 90 minutes to meet her at her house.[56] They were married shortly thereafter. Nathan Appleton bought the Craigie House as a wedding present to the pair. Longfellow would live there for the remainder of his life.[57] His love for Fanny is evident in the following lines from Longfellow's only love poem, the sonnet "The Evening Star",[58] which he wrote in October 1845: "O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus! My morning and my evening star of love!" He once attended a ball without her and noted, "The lights seemed dimmer, the music sadder, the flowers fewer, and the women less fair."[59]

He and Fanny had six children: Charles Appleton (1844–1893), Ernest Wadsworth (1845–1921), Fanny (1847–1848), Alice Mary (1850–1928), Edith (1853–1915), and Anne Allegra (1855–1934). Their second-youngest daughter, Edith, married Richard Henry Dana III, son of the popular writer Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast.[60] When the younger Fanny was born on April 7, 1847, Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep administered ether as the first obstetric anesthetic in the United States to Fanny Longfellow.[61] A few months later, on November 1, 1847, the poem "Evangeline" was published for the first time.[61] His literary income was increasing considerably: in 1840, he had made $219 from his work but the year 1850 brought him $1,900.[62]

On June 14, 1853, Longfellow held a farewell dinner party at his Cambridge home for his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was preparing to move overseas.[63] Shortly thereafter in 1854, Longfellow retired from Harvard,[64] devoting himself entirely to writing. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of Laws from Harvard in 1859.[65]

Death of Frances

On July 9, 1861,[66] a hot day, Fanny was putting locks of her children's hair into an envelope and attempting to seal it with hot sealing wax while Longfellow took a nap.[67] Her dress suddenly caught fire, though it is unclear exactly how;[68] it may have been burning wax or a lighted candle which fell on her dress.[69] Longfellow, awoken from his nap, rushed to help her and threw a rug over her, though it was too small. He stifled the flames with his body as best he could, but she was already badly burned.[68] Over a half a century later, Longfellow's youngest daughter Annie explained the story differently, claiming that there was no candle or wax but that the fire started from a self-lighting match that had fallen on the floor.[60] In both versions of the story, however, Fanny was taken to her room to recover and a doctor was called. She was in and out of consciousness throughout the night and was administered ether. The next morning, July 10, 1861, she died shortly after 10 o'clock after requesting a cup of coffee.[70] Longfellow, in trying to save her, had burned himself badly enough that he was unable to attend her funeral.[71] His facial injuries caused him to stop shaving, thereafter wearing the beard which has become his trademark.[70]

Devastated by her death, he never fully recovered and occasionally resorted to laudanum and ether to deal with it.[72] He worried he would go insane and begged "not to be sent to an asylum" and noted that he was "inwardly bleeding to death".[73] He expressed his grief in the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" (1879), which he wrote eighteen years later to commemorate her death:[37]

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.[73]

Later life and death

Grave of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. To aid him in perfecting the translation and reviewing proofs, he invited friends to weekly meetings every Wednesday starting in 1864.[74] The "Dante Club", as it was called, regularly included William Dean Howells, James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton and other occasional guests.[75] The full three-volume translation was published in the spring of 1867, though Longfellow would continue to revise it,[76] and it went through four printings in its first year.[77] By 1868, Longfellow's annual income was over $48,000.[78]

During the 1860s, Longfellow supported abolitionism and especially hoped for reconciliation between the northern and southern states after the American Civil War. He wrote in his journal in 1878: "I have only one desire; and that is for harmony, and a frank and honest understanding between North and South".[79] Longfellow, despite his aversion to public speaking, accepted an offer from Joshua Chamberlain to speak at his fiftieth reunion at Bowdoin College; he read the poem "Morituri Salutamus" so quietly that few could hear him.[80] The next year, 1876, he declined an offer to be nominated for the Board of Overseers at Harvard "for reasons very conclusive to my own mind".[81]

On August 22, 1879, a female admirer traveled to Longfellow's house in Cambridge and, unaware to whom she was speaking, asked Longfellow: "Is this the house where Longfellow was born?" Longfellow told her it was not. The visitor then asked if he had died here. "Not yet", he replied.[82] In March 1882, Longfellow went to bed with severe stomach pain. He endured the pain for several days with the help of opium before he died surrounded by family on Friday, March 24, 1882.[83] He had been suffering from peritonitis.[84] At the time of his death, his estate was worth an estimated $356,320.[78] He is buried with both of his wives at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His last few years were spent translating the poetry of Michelangelo; though Longfellow never considered it complete enough to be published during his lifetime, a posthumous edition was collected in 1883. Scholars generally regard the work as autobiographical, reflecting the translator as an aging artist facing his impending death.[85]

Writing

Style

Longfellow from a posthumous edition of his poetry

Though much of his work is categorized as lyric poetry, Longfellow experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse.[86] His published poetry shows great versatility, using anapestic and trochaic forms, blank verse, heroic couplets, ballads and sonnets.[87] Typically, Longfellow would carefully consider the subject of his poetic ideas for a long time before deciding on the right metrical form for it.[88] Much of his work is recognized for its melody-like musicality.[89] As he says, "what a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen".[90]

As a very private man, Longfellow did not believe in adding autobiographical elements to his poetry. Two exceptions are dedicated to the death of members of his family. "Resignation", written as a response to the death of his daughter Fanny in 1848, does not use first-person pronouns and is instead a generalized poem of mourning.[91] The death of his second wife Frances, as biographer Charles Calhoun wrote, deeply affected Longfellow personally but "seemed not to touch his poetry, at least directly".[92] His memorial poem to her, a sonnet called "The Cross of Snow", was not published in his lifetime.[91]

Longfellow often used allegory in his work. In "Nature", for example, death is depicted as bedtime for a cranky child.[93] Though he often used didacticism in his poetry, he focused on it less in his later years.[94] Many of the metaphors he used in his poetry as well as subject matter came from legends, mythology, and literature.[95] He was inspired, for example, by Norse mythology for "The Skeleton in Armor" and by Finnish legends for The Song of Hiawatha.[96] In fact, Longfellow rarely wrote on current subjects and seemed detached from contemporary American concerns.[97] Even so, Longfellow, like many during this period, called for the development of high quality American literature. In Kavanagh, a character says:

We want a national literature commensurate with our mountains and rivers... We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country... We want a national drama in which scope shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled activity of our people... In a word, we want a national literature altogether shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth, like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies.[98]

He was also important as a translator; his translation of Dante became a required possession for those who wanted to be a part of high culture.[99] He also encouraged and supported other translators. In 1845, he published The Poets and Poetry of Europe, an 800-page compilation of translations made by other writers, including many by his friend and colleague Cornelius Conway Felton. Longfellow intended the anthology "to bring together, into a compact and convenient form, as large an amount as possible of those English translations which are scattered through many volumes, and are not accessible to the general reader".[100] In honor of Longfellow's role with translations, Harvard established the Longfellow Institute in 1994, dedicated to literature written in the United States in languages other than English.[101]

In 1874, Longfellow oversaw a 31-volume anthology called Poems of Places, which collected poems representing several geographical locations, including European, Asian, and Arabian countries.[102] Emerson was disappointed and reportedly told Longfellow: "The world is expecting better things of you than this... You are wasting time that should be bestowed upon original production".[103] In preparing the volume, Longfellow hired Katherine Sherwood Bonner as an amanuensis.[104]

Critical response

Longfellow and his good friend Senator Charles Sumner

Longfellow's early collections, Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems, made him instantly popular. The New-Yorker called him "one of the very few in our time who has successfully aimed in putting poetry to its best and sweetest uses".[44] The Southern Literary Messenger immediately put Longfellow "among the first of our American poets".[44] Poet John Greenleaf Whittier said that Longfellow's poetry illustrated "the careful moulding by which art attains the graceful ease and chaste simplicity of nature".[105] Longfellow's friend Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote of him as "our chief singer" and one who "wins and warms... kindles, softens, cheers [and] calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears!"[106]

The rapidity with which American readers embraced Longfellow was unparalleled in publishing history in the United States;[107] by 1874, he was earning $3,000 per poem.[108] His popularity spread throughout Europe as well and his poetry was translated during his lifetime into Italian, French, German, and other languages.[109] As scholar Bliss Perry later wrote, Longfellow was so highly praised that criticizing him was a criminal act like "carrying a rifle into a national park".[110] In the last two decades of his life, he often received requests for autographs from strangers, which he always sent.[111] John Greenleaf Whittier suggested it was this massive correspondence that lead to Longfellow's death, writing: "My friend Longfellow was driven to death by these incessant demands".[112]

Contemporary writer Edgar Allan Poe wrote to Longfellow in May 1841 of his "fervent admiration which [your] genius has inspired in me" and later called him "unquestionably the best poet in America".[113] However, after Poe's reputation as a critic increased, he publicly accused Longfellow of plagiarism in what has been since termed by Poe biographers as "The Longfellow War".[114] His assessment was that Longfellow was "a determined imitator and a dextrous adapter of the ideas of other people",[113] specifically Alfred, Lord Tennyson.[115] His accusations may have been a publicity stunt to boost readership of the Broadway Journal, for which he was the editor at the time.[116] Longfellow did not respond publicly, but, after Poe's death, he wrote: "The harshness of his criticisms I have never attributed to anything but the irritation of a sensitive nature chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong".[117]

Margaret Fuller judged him "artificial and imitative" and lacking force.[118] Poet Walt Whitman also considered Longfellow an imitator of European forms, though he praised his ability to reach a popular audience as "the expressor of common themes – of the little songs of the masses".[119] Lewis Mumford said that Longfellow could be completely removed from the history of literature without much effect.[97] Towards the end of his life, contemporaries considered him more of a children's poet[120] as many of his readers were children.[121] A contemporary reviewer noted in 1848 that Longfellow was creating a "Goody two-shoes kind of literature... slipshod, sentimental stories told in the style of the nursery, beginning in nothing and ending in nothing".[122] A more modern critic said, "Who, except wretched schoolchildren, now reads Longfellow?"[97] A London critic in the London Quarterly Review, however, condemned all American poetry, saying, "with two or three exceptions, there is not a poet of mark in the whole union" but singled out Longfellow as one of those exceptions.[123] As an editor of the Boston Evening Transcript wrote in 1846, "Whatever the miserable envy of trashy criticism may write against Longfellow, one thing is most certain, no American poet is more read".[124]

Legacy

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia and Katherine C. Tobin, member of the USPS Board of Governors, unveil the new U.S. postage stamp in honor of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 2007.

Longfellow was the most popular poet of his day[125] and generally regarded as the most distinguished poet the country had produced. As a friend once wrote to him, "no other poet was so fully recognized in his lifetime".[126] Many of his works helped shape the American character and its legacy, particularly with the poem "Paul Revere's Ride".[110] He was such an admired figure in the United States during his life that his 70th birthday in 1877 took on the air of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry. He had become one of the first American celebrities and was also popular in Europe. It was reported that 10,000 copies of The Courtship of Miles Standish sold in London in a single day.[127] Children adored him and, when the "spreading chestnut-tree" mentioned in the poem "The Village Blacksmith" was cut down, the children of Cambridge had the tree converted into an armchair which they presented to the poet.[128] In 1884, Longfellow became the first non-British writer for whom a commemorative sculpted bust was placed in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London; he remains the only American poet represented with a bust.[129]

Over the years, Longfellow's personality has become part of his reputation. He has been presented as a gentle, placid, poetic soul: an image perpetuated by his brother Samuel Longfellow, who wrote an early biography which specifically emphasized these points.[130] As James Russell Lowell said, Longfellow had an "absolute sweetness, simplicity, and modesty".[117] At Longfellow's funeral, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "a sweet and beautiful soul".[131] In reality, Longfellow's life was much more difficult than was assumed. He suffered from neuralgia, which caused him constant pain, and he also had poor eyesight. He wrote to friend Charles Sumner: "I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart".[132] He had difficulty coping with the death of his second wife.[72] Longfellow was very quiet, reserved, and private; in later years, he was known for being unsocial and avoided leaving home.[133]

Over time, Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into the 20th century as academics began to appreciate poets like Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost.[134] In the 20th century, literary scholar Kermit Vanderbilt noted, "Increasingly rare is the scholar who braves ridicule to justify the art of Longfellow's popular rhymings."[135] More recently, he was honored in March 2007 when the United States Postal Service made a stamp commemorating him. A number of schools are named after him in various states as well. Neil Diamond's 1974 hit song, "Longfellow Serenade", is a reference to the poet.[136] He is a protagonist in Matthew Pearl's murder mystery The Dante Club (2003).[137]

List of works

"The Village Blacksmith" (manuscript page 1)
  • Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea (Travelogue) (1835)
  • Hyperion, a Romance (1839)
  • The Spanish Student. A Play in Three Acts (1843)[51]
  • Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (epic poem) (1847)
  • "Kavanagh: A Tale" (1849)
  • "The Golden Legend" (poem) (1851)
  • The Song of Hiawatha (epic poem) (1855)
  • The Children's Hour (1860)
  • Household Poems (1865)
  • The New England Tragedies (1868)
  • The Divine Tragedy (1871)
  • Christus: A Mystery (1872)
  • "Aftermath" (poem) (1873)
  • The Reaper and the Flowers (1839)
  • The Bell of Atri (from The Sicilian's Tale) (1863–72)

Poetry collections

  • Birds of Passage
  • Voices of the Night (1839)
  • Ballads and Other Poems (1841)
  • Poems on Slavery (1842)
  • The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845)
  • The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
  • The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems (1858)
  • Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
  • Flower-de-Luce (1867)
  • Three Books of Song (1872)[102]
  • The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)[102]
  • Kéramos and Other Poems (1878)[102]
  • Ultima Thule (1880)[102]
  • In the Harbor (1882)[102]
  • Michel Angelo: A Fragment (incomplete; published posthumously)[102]

Translations

  • Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique (Translation from Spanish) (1833)
  • Dante's Divine Comedy (Translation) (1867)

Anthologies

  • Poets and Poetry of Europe (Translations) (1844)[51]
  • The Waif (1845)[51]
  • Poems of Places (1874)[102]

References

  1. ^ Calhoun, 5
  2. ^ Sullivan, 180
  3. ^ Wadsworth-Longfellow Genealogy at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - A Maine Historical Society Web Site
  4. ^ Arvin, 7
  5. ^ Thompson, 16
  6. ^ a b c Arvin, 11
  7. ^ Sullivan, 181
  8. ^ Calhoun, 24
  9. ^ Calhoun, 16
  10. ^ McFarland, 58-59
  11. ^ Calhoun, 33
  12. ^ a b Calhoun, 37
  13. ^ Arvin, 13
  14. ^ a b Sullivan, 184
  15. ^ Arvin, 14
  16. ^ Calhoun, 40
  17. ^ Arvin, 22
  18. ^ Calhoun, 42
  19. ^ Arvin, 26
  20. ^ Sullivan, 186
  21. ^ Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2008: 242. ISBN 978-1-55970836-4
  22. ^ Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books, 2007: 195. ISBN 9780465008537.
  23. ^ Calhoun, 67
  24. ^ Calhoun, 69
  25. ^ a b Williams, 66
  26. ^ Irmscher, 225
  27. ^ Thompson, 199
  28. ^ Sullivan, 187
  29. ^ Calhoun, 90
  30. ^ Arvin, 28
  31. ^ Williams, 108
  32. ^ Arvin, 30
  33. ^ Sullivan, 189
  34. ^ Calhoun, 114–115
  35. ^ Calhoun, 118
  36. ^ Sullivan, 190
  37. ^ a b Arvin, 305
  38. ^ Calhoun, 124
  39. ^ Calhoun, 124–125
  40. ^ Brooks, 153
  41. ^ Calhoun, 137
  42. ^ Gioia, 75
  43. ^ Williams, 75
  44. ^ a b c Calhoun, 138
  45. ^ Calhoun, 135
  46. ^ Sullivan, 191
  47. ^ Calhoun, 119
  48. ^ a b McFarland, 59
  49. ^ Thompson, 258
  50. ^ a b Sullivan, 192
  51. ^ a b c d Calhoun, 179
  52. ^ Bayless, 130–131
  53. ^ Irmscher, 60
  54. ^ Thompson, 332
  55. ^ Wagenknecht, 56
  56. ^ Calhoun, 164–165
  57. ^ Arvin, 51
  58. ^ Arvin, 304
  59. ^ Sullivan, 193
  60. ^ a b Calhoun, 217
  61. ^ a b Calhoun, 189
  62. ^ Williams, 19
  63. ^ McFarland, 198
  64. ^ Brooks, 453
  65. ^ Calhoun, 198
  66. ^ Miller, 91
  67. ^ McFarland, 243
  68. ^ a b Calhoun, 215
  69. ^ Arvin, 138
  70. ^ a b McFarland, 244
  71. ^ Arvin, 139
  72. ^ a b Calhoun, 218
  73. ^ a b Sullivan, 197
  74. ^ Arvin, 140
  75. ^ Calhoun, 236
  76. ^ Irmscher, 263
  77. ^ Irmscher, 268
  78. ^ a b Williams, 100
  79. ^ Irmscher, 205
  80. ^ Calhoun, 240–241
  81. ^ Wagenknecht, 40
  82. ^ Irmscher, 7
  83. ^ Calhoun, 248
  84. ^ Wagenknecht, 11
  85. ^ Irmscher, 137–139
  86. ^ Arvin, 182
  87. ^ Williams, 130
  88. ^ Williams, 156
  89. ^ Brooks, 174
  90. ^ Wagenknecht, 145
  91. ^ a b Irmscher, 46
  92. ^ Calhoun, 229
  93. ^ Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999: 52. ISBN 0520226879.
  94. ^ Arvin, 183
  95. ^ Arvin, 186
  96. ^ Brooks, 175–176
  97. ^ a b c Arvin, 321
  98. ^ Lewis, R. W. B. The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955: 79.
  99. ^ Calhoun, 237
  100. ^ Irmscher, 231
  101. ^ Irmscher, 21
  102. ^ a b c d e f g h Calhoun, 242
  103. ^ Irmscher, 200
  104. ^ Wagenknecht, 185
  105. ^ Wagenknecht, Edward. John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967: 113.
  106. ^ Sullivan, 177
  107. ^ Calhoun, 139
  108. ^ Levine, Miriam. A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Apple-wood Books, 1984: 127. ISBN 0-918222-51-6
  109. ^ Irmscher, 218
  110. ^ a b Sullivan, 178
  111. ^ Calhoun, 245
  112. ^ Irmscher, 36
  113. ^ a b Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 171. ISBN 0815410387.
  114. ^ Silverman, 250
  115. ^ Silverman, 251
  116. ^ Calhoun, 160
  117. ^ a b Wagenknecht, 144
  118. ^ McFarland, 170
  119. ^ Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995: 353. ISBN 0679767096.
  120. ^ Calhoun, 246
  121. ^ Brooks, 455
  122. ^ Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977: 235. ISBN 0-394-40532-3
  123. ^ Silverman, 199
  124. ^ Irmscher, 20
  125. ^ Bayless, 40
  126. ^ Gioia, 65
  127. ^ Brooks, 523
  128. ^ Sullivan, 198
  129. ^ Williams, 21
  130. ^ Williams, 18
  131. ^ Williams, 197
  132. ^ Wagenknecht, 16–17
  133. ^ Wagenknecht, 34
  134. ^ Williams, 23
  135. ^ Gioia, 68
  136. ^ Hyatt, Wesley (1999). The Billboard Book of #1 Adult Contemporary Hits (Billboard Publications), page 150.
  137. ^ Calhoun, 258

Sources

  • Arvin, Newton. Longfellow: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963.
  • Bayless, Joy. Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943.
  • Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952.
  • Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN 0807070262.
  • Gioia, Dana. "Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism". The Columbia History of American Poetry, edited by Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1993. ISBN 0231078366</ref>
  • Irmscher, Christoph. Longfellow Redux. University of Illinois, 2006. ISBN 9780252030635.
  • McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. ISBN 0802117767.
  • Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0060923318.
  • Thompson, Lawrance. Young Longfellow (1807–1843). New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938.
  • Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Portrait of an American Humanist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.
  • Williams, Cecil B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1964.
  • Sullivan, Wilson. New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972. ISBN 0027886808.

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