According to Howells, Longfellows power derived from his courage in frankly trusting the personal as the universal along with his unaffectedness, the simplicity of his feelings, and the sincerity of his expression. by. He achieved a level of national and international prominence previously unequaled in the literary history of the United States and is one of the few American writers honored in the Poets Corner of Westminster Abbeyin fact, he is believed to be the first as his bust was installed there in 1884. In his own time one of Longfellows chief contributions to American literature was the encouragement he offered to aspiring writerswhether those Boston-Cambridge-Concord literati with whom he interacted through his various clubs or those such as Emily Dickinson, who responded gratefully to him from a distance as the champion of poetry in an otherwise prosaic American society, the Pegasus in the pound of Yankee bookstores. Aside from two Phi Beta Kappa poemsthe first at Bowdoin in 1832 and the other the next year at Harvardthe poetry he was composing consisted chiefly of translations from Romance languages that he used in his classes and articles. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Wadsworth-Longfellow, Academy of American Poets - Biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, National Park Service - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Official Site of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Maine: An Encyclopedia - Biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetry Foundation - Biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). 'Adieu, Adieu! At least as wearing as his original authorship in late years was a massive editorial and translation project he undertook for his publisher, James T. Fields; Poems of Places emerged in 31 volumes between 1876 and 1879. In 1831, he married Mary Potter, and they went on an extended tour of Europe. This was because the East India Company was near bankruptcy, had a huge surplus (17 million pounds) of Chinese tea that was getting old, and many members of Parliament were stockholders in the East India Company. was born at Portland, Maine, Feb. 27, 1807, and graduated at Bowdoin College, 1825. As a Master NLP and Hypnosis Practitioner, Spiritual Life Coach, and Speech and Drama Teacher, Sally takes a holistic approach to voice - as an energetic channel affected by our physical . Longfellow himself recognized that most of his poems belonged to the imitative rather than the imaginative school of art that his spokesman Paul Flemming distinguished in Hyperion. 198 likes. [133] 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". [50] The Southern Literary Messenger immediately put Longfellow "among the first of our American poets". In 1839 he published Voices of the Night, which contained the poems Hymn to the Night, The Psalm of Life, and The Light of the Stars and achieved immediate popularity. Several years later, he wrote the poem "Mezzo Cammin," which expressed his personal struggles in his middle years.[43]. - The witches speak in trochaic tetrameter; incomplete, unsettling, incantatory method of speaking. Longfellow, born in Maine in 1807, became an epic poet of sorts for American history, writing about the American Revolution in the way bards of old wrote about conquests across Europe. Wisely improve the Present. Longfellow attended private schools and the Portland Academy. Although the title character, the liberal-minded young minister of a rural New England church, is the central figure of a love triangle involving two close female friends, Cecilia Vaughan and Alice Archer, Longfellow probably took more interest in the schoolmaster, whose literary ambitions are continually frustrated by the press of teaching, fatherhood, and demands made on his time by an aspiring poetess. He suffered from neuralgia, which caused him constant pain, and he had poor eyesight. He considered moving to New York after New York University proposed offering him a newly created professorship of modern languages, but there would be no salary. Longfellow attended private schools and the Portland Academy. Whereas 19th-century readers had savored the sentimental charms of The Childrens Hour, readers of today look for personal confessions of a sort Longfellow held in reserve; two sonnets particularly admired today for their courageous yet artistically controlled revelations of personal pain, Mezzo Cammin and The Cross of Snow (composed 1879), both appeared posthumously. [135] As a friend once wrote, "no other poet was so fully recognized in his lifetime". His father, Stephen Longfellow, was an attorney and a Harvard graduate active in public affairs. [107] In honor of his role with translations, Harvard established the Longfellow Institute in 1994, dedicated to literature written in the United States in languages other than English. UNIVE'RSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, CAMBRIDGE. The germ of the story reached Longfellow through the Reverend Horace L. Conolly, who had failed to interest his friend Hawthorne in developing the legend of Acadian lovers separated on their intended wedding day by an English edict displacing French Canadian settlers in order to establish Nova Scotia. He achieved a level of national and international prominence previously unequaled in the literary history of the United States and is one of the few American writers honored in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbeyin fact, he is believed to be the first as his bust was installed . Scholars generally regard the work as autobiographical, reflecting the translator as an aging artist facing his impending death. After a period in a boardinghouse near Bowdoin, they set up housekeeping in Brunswick even as the young husband explored every possible avenue of escape from that all-too-familiar environment. Today, Longfellow's face and words still appear on a variety of consumer goods. Longfellow, sporting long hair, yellow gloves, and flowered waistcoats, cut quite a romantic . He was honored in March 2007 when the United States Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating him. Born on February 27 46. Wife of Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Fanny Longfellow (1817-1861), wife of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was a skilled artist and was well-read in many subjects. Test. Test. Classic and contemporary poems for the holiday season. She died shortly after 10 the next morning, July 10, after requesting a cup of coffee. Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. Marion 2. [17], He pursued his literary goals by submitting poetry and prose to various newspapers and magazines, partly due to encouragement from Professor Thomas Cogswell Upham. . Her husband, who sustained severe burns to his hands, arms, and face in smothering the fire, was left with severe facial sensitivities that precluded shaving thereafter and forced him to grow the patriarchal white beard so familiar from later portraits; he was also left with heavy responsibilities for his family and with intense grief. In poems throughout his career, he represented persons of all times, cultures, and states of life as turning to creative expression (music, song, poetry, storytelling, and pottery) for entertainment and reassurance. The volume In the Harbor, Ultima ThulePart 2 came out just after his death in 1882 and included his final composition, The Bells of San Blas (1882). From London the Longfellow party proceeded to Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. This period was also one of experimentation in dramatic writing, although publication of The Spanish Student was delayed until 1843. New England storytelling traditions also engaged Longfellows attention in these years. [121], Contemporaneous 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". The Poet and His Song (1880). In his years there, he earned a reputation as being very studious and became fluent in Latin. Hundreds of editions, translations, and imitations followed, and Evangeline won admiration in Europe (from which Longfellow drew some of his sources) as well as the United States. A translation of this work had been among his goals when teaching Dante at Harvard, and he had translated small parts of the poem in the early 1840s. After falling in love with 17-year-old Frances Appleton, Longfellow returned to Heidelberg to escort Marys friend Clara Crowninshield home to the US. -4 TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN. [83] He is buried with both of his wives at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For the actor, see, "Longfellow" redirects here. My morning and my evening star of love!" [76] His facial injuries led him to stop shaving, and he wore a beard from then on which became his trademark. In his grief Longfellow moved on to Heidelberg and immersion in German literaturereadings in Goethe, Schiller, Ludwig Uhland, Jean Paul Richter, E.T.A. In Germany, Longfellow settled down to relatively disciplined study in preparation for his Bowdoin professorship, though his readings there focused more on Spanish literature than German. [54] His friend George Stillman Hillard encouraged him 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". When did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow say music is the universal language of mankind? 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". [111], Fellow Portland, Maine native John Neal published the first substantial praise of Longfellow's work. [16] In his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations: I will not disguise it in the leastthe 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 itI 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. Corrections? Match. In 1855, using Henry Rowe Schoolcrafts two books on the Indian tribes of North America as the base and the trochaic metrics of the Finnish epic Kalevala as his medium, he fashioned The Song of Hiawatha (1855). The marriage was an exceptionally happy one for both partners and brought Longfellow the domestic stability he had missed. Again, he sought solace by flinging himself into his work. Fanny is also credited with directly inspiring two poems that emerged from their wedding trip The Arsenal at Springfield, the peace poem she requested, and The Old Clock on the Stairs; both poems appeared in The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845; copyright 1846). Why did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow write a Psalm of Life? [65] Both accounts state that Frances was taken to her room to recover, and a doctor was called. / Sail on, O UNION, strong and great! President Abraham Lincoln, hearing these lines recited in the midst of the Civil War, is reported to have wept before remarking, It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that. He also left a loving family and grateful readers who have continued to honor him by erecting statues and naming parks and schools for him, Evangeline, and Hiawatha. 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. See also the Longfellow entry in DLB 59: American Literary Critics and Scholars, 1800-1850. [55] During the courtship, Longfellow frequently walked from Cambridge to the Appleton home in Beacon Hill in Boston by crossing the Boston Bridge. There were still poems drawn from Longfellows travels and his readings in European literatures, but the most celebrated poem of the book was among his most patriotic pieces. Longfellow's benign poetic temperament owes much to his full and fortunate life. Like . Long after his death in 1882, however, these neglected later works were seen to contain some of his most effective writing. The recent graduate was asked to become the first professor, with the understanding that he should be given a period of time in which to travel and study in Europe. It represented the medieval phase of Christianity and the virtue of faith (mixed, inevitably, with superstition) by dramatizing the story of a peasant girls willingness to die so that a prince might be healed of his illness. [142] In reality, his life was much more difficult than was assumed. For this work Longfellow drew on European sources, chiefly Hartmann von Aues Der Arme Heinrich (circa 1191). Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). on 13 Jul 1843 in Cambridge, Middlesex Co., MA; they had the following. Many of Longfellows efforts now took dramatic form, although none proved suitable for staging. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807, in Portland, Maine. He began working on a dramatic poem about Puritan persecution of the Quakers, which was eventually included in one of the three New England Tragedies within Christus. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Henry began his schooling at age three, when he and his older brother, Stephen, enrolled in the first of several private schools in which they prepared for entrance to Bowdoin College. Longfellow laid the groundwork for other authorial careers by persuading readers of the importance of art as well as by demonstrating how literature could be turned into a paying proposition in a country known for material ambition. Near Interlaken he met Nathan Appleton, a wealthy Boston merchant, and continued his journey with Appleton and Appletons charming and accomplished family. [31] 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. She named this second son among her eight children for her brother, Henry Wadsworth, who had died in Tripoli harbor in 1804. Most of his publications for the next few years involved textbooks for students of Spanish, French, and Italian. A driving northwesterly storm succeeded, and before the sun was set every vestige of spring had vanished; the lake, the mountains, the village, and the fields being again hidden under one dazzling coat of snow. A sociable man known for his graciously winning manners, Longfellow took pleasure in associations with other literary figures through the Saturday Club, founded about 1855 for monthly dinner meetings, and the Atlantic Club, which brought together contributors to the Atlantic Monthly after its launching in 1857. Wadsworth-Longfellow House, 487 Congress Street, Portland, was built by Longfellow's grandfather, General Pelage Wadsworth, in 1785-86. "[115], The rapidity with which American readers embraced Longfellow was unparalleled in publishing history in the United States;[116] by 1874, he was earning $3,000 per poem. On this trip he visited England, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The Fireside poets. Death Year: 1882. [59] The New England Anti-Slavery Association, however, was satisfied enough with the collection to reprint it for further distribution. Haiku. [93] Typically, he would carefully consider the subject of his poetic ideas for a long time before deciding on the right metrical form for it. Hoffmann,Hans Christian Andersen,William Butler Yeats,Henry van Dyke,Leo . Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. As a memorial to their father, Longfellow's children donated land across Brattle Street and facing the family home to the City of Cambridge, which became Longfellow Park. The framework Longfellow provided, however, allowed his six storytellers (the Landlord, the Student, the Spanish Jew, the Italian, the Musician, and the Theologian) to criticize each others presentations and draw out lessons of tolerance, forgiveness, and faith. Created by. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote sixteen volumes of poetry, including some long poems. Through his friendship with Chibiabos the musician, he encourages the arts; by marrying a Dacotah maiden, he fosters intertribal peace. [75] Longfellow had burned himself while trying to save her, badly enough that he was unable to attend her funeral. In 1842 his Ballads and Other Poems, containing such favourites as The Wreck of the Hesperus and The Village Blacksmith, swept the nation. Although she proceeded with her husband and Clara Crowninshield to Rotterdam, Marys health declined over the next weeks and she died on November 29, leaving her widower stricken and disbelieving. [95] As he says, "what a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen". When he was offered a professorship at Harvard, with another opportunity to go abroad, he accepted and set forth for Germany in 1835. That book also featured The Hanging of the Crane (1874), which had been Longfellows most remunerative poem when The New York Ledger paid him 3,000 dollars for its serial publication earlier that same year. [50] 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". Soon afterward, however, he returned to the most American of topics in The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and to the interest in American indigenous peoples he had earlier shown at Bowdoin and in To the Driving Cloud (1845). [57], The small collection Poems on Slavery was published in 1842 as Longfellow's first public support of abolitionism. He achieved a level of national and international prominence previously unequaled in the literary history of the United States and is one of the few American writers. Through his friendship with Chibiabos the musician, he earned a reputation as being very studious and fluent... 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