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. [dropcap letter="O"]n a fine September morning in 1822 the fast stagecoach from Portland to Brunswick was . Post by libraryanne February 6th, 2011, 2:42 pm. To aid him in perfecting the translation and reviewing proofs, he invited friends to meetings every Wednesday starting in 1864. "End of Evangeline, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." There should be 5 seconds silence at the end of the recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes. Daughter of Nathan Appleton I b. 4 In 1773, Parliament passed a law giving the English East India Company exclusive right to sell tea in America. Resuming friendship with Fanny and Mary Appleton and their brother Tom, Longfellow was crushed by Fannys rejection of his 1837 marriage proposal. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, (born February 27, 1807, Portland, Massachusetts [now in Maine], U.S.died March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts), the most popular American poet in the 19th century, known for such works as The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and "Paul Revere's Ride" (1863). The boys first publication, appearing in the November 17, 1820 Portland Gazette and signed simply Henry, drew on local history for a melancholy four-quatrain salute to warriors who fell at The Battle of Lovells Pond. A family friends dismissal of the piece as both stiff and derivative may have discouraged Henrys ambition for the time. [38] There, he further studied German as well as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic. [5] He was the second of eight children. In the first, he arrived in Cambridge in 1837, fresh from a six-year professorship at Bowdoin College. English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. 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. Page II Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. In 1854 he resigned his Harvard professorshippartly because of his eyesight, partly for relief from academic pressures and contention with the university corporation on behalf of his department, but probably most of all because he found he could support his household on the strength of his poetry and desired more opportunity for writing. UNIVE'RSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, CAMBRIDGE. A revised edition of Hyperion followed in 1869. Children across New England are familiar with the works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose "Paul Revere's Ride" has been recited at many a grade school pageant. He entered Bowdoin College at the age of 15, and one of his classmates was Nathaniel Hawthorne; the two would remain lifelong friends. From London the Longfellow party proceeded to Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. As was the custom for the time, the two brothers focused most of their studies on languages and literature. [37], In December 1834, Longfellow received a letter from Josiah Quincy III, president of Harvard College, offering him the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages with the stipulation that he spend a year or so abroad. Written in anapestic tetrameter meant to suggest the galloping of a horse, this folk ballad recalls a hero of the American Revolution and his famous midnight ride to warn the Americans about the impending British raid on Concord, Massachusetts. Some years after Longfellows death a violent reaction set in against his verse as critics dismissed his conventional high-minded sentiments and the gentle strain of Romanticism that he had made so popular. Classic and contemporary poems for the holiday season. "[129] Lewis Mumford said that Longfellow could be completely removed from the history of literature without much effect. Longfellow and Mary Potter were married in September 1831. Chapter 4 / Lesson 6. While coping with private tragedy at home, he suffered the additional trauma of the Civil War. 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". About this Poet. Mrs. How many languages did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow speak? 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. Marion 2. Longfellows goal in this second European journey was to acquaint himself with Scandinavian languages while strengthening his command of German language and literature. [91], Much of Longfellow's work is categorized as lyric poetry, but he experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse. Longfellows immense popularity helped raise the status of poetry in his country, and he played an important part in bringing European cultural traditions to American audiences. 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). [11] He studied at the Portland Academy until age 14. . Snow-Flakes. Henry,Edward Berens,Lyman Frank Baum,E.T.A. [6], Longfellow was descended from English colonists who settled in New England in the early 1600s. See answer (1) Copy. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow/Prini. [68] In 1854, he retired from Harvard,[69] devoting himself entirely to writing. Among his most significant works are "A Psalm of Life" (1839), "The Village Blacksmith" (1842), "Paul Revere's Ride" (1861), and the book-length poems Evangeline (1847) and Song of Hiawatha (1855). He dug through the past for stories that could could speak to his time, or that could act as cultural containers of collective memory. Similar to an epic, a narrative poem tells a story. Poems such as Paul Reveres Ride, Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (1847), and A Psalm of Life were mainstays of primary and secondary school curricula, long remembered by generations of readers who studied them as children. [106] He encouraged and supported other translators, as well. All day I am weary and sad". Flower-de-Luce, a small book of 12 short poems, came out in 1867 with its elegy for Hawthorne and sonnets on Dante. The lovers, Evangeline and Gabriel, are reunited years later as Gabriel is dying. [30] During his years teaching at the college, he translated textbooks from French, Italian, and Spanish;[31] his first published book was a translation of the poetry of medieval Spanish poet Jorge Manrique in 1833. His reputation could also benefit from renewed critical respect for sentimentalism, especially as that respect gets extended to male authors. [42] Three years later, he was inspired to write the poem "Footsteps of Angels" about her. [108], 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. His last few years were spent translating the poetry of Michelangelo. Learn more about narrative poetry here. Longfellow managed to speak to the conflicts and at the same time to seem a safe haven, an anchor in the storm"("Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" Historic). His mother, Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow, was the daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who had served in the American Revolution. He possessed great metrical skill, but he failed to capture the American spirit like his great contemporary Walt Whitman, and his work generally lacked emotional depth and imaginative power. 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. 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. 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. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 - March 24, 1882) was an American poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". In the book, Myles fancied Priscilla but was too shy to tell her . [114] 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! [134], Longfellow was the most popular poet of his day. In 1872 Three Books of Song presented the second part of Tales of a Wayside Inn along with Judas Maccabeus and a group of translations. 'Well! Longfellow returned to this theme three years later in his last major prose composition, Kavanagh, A Tale (1849). But, like anyone else who had gone to school in the first quarter of the 20th century, she'd been introduced to verse by the venerable Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82). They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Both seaside and fireside come together in The Fire of Drift-Wood, a mood piece employing imagery of light and warmth drawn from shipwreck as a metaphor for intuited estrangement among friends. 1807-1882. [33] It may have been joyless work. LONGFELLOWATBOWDOIN. His works are still regularly anthologised after nearly a century and a half. In 1829 he returned to the United States to be a professor and librarian at Bowdoin. He spoke at least eight languages well and could . Wisely improve the Present. [109] 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". was also enrolled. Learn about the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his biography, poems, and critical reception. English Literature - Jamie Handitye "Fair is foul and foul is fair" In the quote above, we are introduced to the witches in the very first scene of Macbeth. 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. When an eye injury that may have resulted from his intensive editing and translating efforts for the massive The Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845) interfered with his writing, she helped by reading aloud for him, copying out his poem drafts, and handling much of his correspondence. Test. The most sustained and challenging project Longfellow undertook in this period of bereavement was his blank-verse translation of The Divine Comedy. [117] His popularity spread throughout Europe, as well, and his poetry was translated during his lifetime into Italian, French, German, and other languages. [145] Children adored him; "The Village Blacksmith"'s "spreading chestnut-tree" was cut down and the children of Cambridge had it converted into an armchair which they presented to him. Although many of the poems had been written and even published separately beforehand, they were loosely held together in this book by the fiction of an assemblage of friends entertaining each other by storytelling at a Sudbury, Massachusetts, inn. [141] As James Russell Lowell said, Longfellow had an "absolute sweetness, simplicity, and modesty". Written for the 15th reunion of his Bowdoin College class, it is a memorable reflection on aging and is Longfellows most admired ode. (Even The Birds of Killingworth was adapted from an English story.) [72] Her dress suddenly caught fire, but it is unclear exactly how;[73] burning wax or a lighted candle may have fallen onto it. 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. He wrote and edited textbooks, translated poetry and prose, and wrote essays on French, Spanish, and Italian literature, but he felt isolated. He was honored in March 2007 when the United States Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating him. Narrative poem tells a story. this period of bereavement how many languages did henry wadsworth longfellow speak his blank-verse translation of Divine... A narrative poem tells a story. 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