[119] In the last two decades of his life, he often received requests for autographs from strangers, which he always sent. [79] The "Dante Club", as it was called, regularly included William Dean Howells, James Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton, as well as other occasional guests. The antislavery sentiments he expressed in Poems on Slavery that same year, however, lacked the humanity and power of John Greenleaf Whittiers denunciations on the same theme. The book met with only modest success while deepening Fannys estrangement, sparking considerable Boston gossip, and drawing mixed but often hostile responses from reviewers. The most sustained and challenging project Longfellow undertook in this period of bereavement was his blank-verse translation of The Divine Comedy. [41] He was deeply saddened by her death and wrote: "One thought occupies me night and dayShe is dead She is dead! 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). Six children were born to the coupleCharles, Ernest, Fanny, Alice, Edith, and Anne Allegra. [148], "Henry Wadsworth" redirects here. 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. Hoffmann, and Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg)that awakened a new sense of poetry as emotional expression. The marriage was an exceptionally happy one for both partners and brought Longfellow the domestic stability he had missed. The poem exalts and exocitizes Native Americans and assumes the obliteration of indigenous ways of life. Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into the 20th century, as academics focused attention on other poets such as Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost. [70], Frances was putting locks of her children's hair into an envelope on July 9, 1861[71] and attempting to seal it with hot sealing wax while Longfellow took a nap. The Divina Commedia group of six sonnets written between 1864 and 1866 honor the Tuscan poet Dantemost memorably the first, with its image of the bereaved American poet leaving my burden at this minster gate, / Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray in a quest for spiritual peace. [19] About 24 of them were published in the short-lived Boston periodical The United States Literary Gazette. His model was Washington Irving, to whom he was introduced while in Spain, and Longfellow envisaged putting his experience to Irvingesque literary use. Longfellow met Boston industrialist Nathan Appleton and his family in the town of Thun, Switzerland, including his son Thomas Gold Appleton. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. [106] He encouraged and supported other translators, as well. Learn. The familys domestic bliss, however, was about to be shattered. How many languages did Longfellow speak? In 1831, he married Mary Potter, and they went on an extended tour of Europe. [53] In July 1839, he wrote to a friend: "Victory hangs doubtful. Born in Portland in 1807, when that bustling port city was still part of Massachusetts, Longfellow came from an old, established family of lawyers, judges, and generals. "[138] Twentieth-century poet Lewis Putnam Turco concluded that "Longfellow was minor and derivative in every way throughout his career nothing more than a hack imitator of the English Romantics. The professorship was not created and Longfellow agreed to continue teaching at Bowdoin. [136] Many of his works helped shape the American character and its legacy, particularly with the poem "Paul Revere's Ride". Died on March 24, 1882 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. [100] He often used allegory in his work. [86] The next year, he declined an offer to be nominated for the Board of Overseers at Harvard "for reasons very conclusive to my own mind". 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". thou art happy' 10. [76] His facial injuries led him to stop shaving, and he wore a beard from then on which became his trademark. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet who used narrative poems to memorialize people and events in American history, including Paul Revere. The failure of its first publisher kept half the first edition of 1,200 copies from distribution, and the eventual readership of the book, American travelers in Europe, probably discovered Hyperion based on its authors later reputation rather than its inherent merits as prose fiction. In the book, Myles fancied Priscilla but was too shy to tell her . [20] He gave the student commencement address. He followed this work with two fragmentary dramatic poems, Judas Maccabaeus and Michael Angelo. But his genius was not dramatic, as he had demonstrated earlier in The Spanish Student (1843). Post by libraryanne February 6th, 2011, 2:42 pm. He was too restless to take a carriage and walked 90 minutes to meet her at her house. was born at Portland, Maine, Feb. 27, 1807, and graduated at Bowdoin College, 1825. There he settled down to his professorial duties at Harvard, freed from some of the Bowdoin drudgery but still feeling oppressed by responsibilities to supervise native-language instructors and provide some basic instruction himself in each of the languages in the curriculum of the university while preparing lectures on European literatures. Longfellows imitativeness differed significantly from that of many contemporaries, however, in that he early outgrew his tendency to echo Bryants style or that of English Romantic poets and turned instead to German Romanticism, which he virtually introduced into American poetry, and to traditions of European verse from many countries and eras. [118] Scholar Bliss Perry suggests that criticizing Longfellow at that time was almost a criminal act equal to "carrying a rifle into a national park". 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. His father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather was Peleg Wadsworth, a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress. [105], He was important as a translator; his translation of Dante became a required possession for those who wanted to be a part of high culture. Later, he distilled memories of European wanderings (along with material from his college lectures) into Outre-Mer; A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea (1833-4) and the anticipatory Schoolmaster pieces he published between 1831 and 1833 in the New-England Magazine, but not before directing his talents to more practical kinds of writing. Restless and sorrowful, Longfellow then set out alone to travel through the Tyrol and Switzerland. Most of his publications for the next few years involved textbooks for students of Spanish, French, and Italian. Born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine, USA , United States. "[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. Born Henry WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Always a writer at heart, when Henry wasn't in school he and his childhood friend, William Browne, planned . [101] Many of the metaphors that he used in his poetry came from legends, mythology, and literature. Page III CONTENTS. 1807-1882 Ranked #33 in the top 500 poets. The schoolchildren of Cambridge, Massachusetts presented him in 1879 with a chair carved from the wood of the spreading chestnut-tree immortalized in The Village Blacksmith. His picture appeared among Our American Poets in classrooms across the United States, thanks to Fieldss success in placing Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in textbooks that established canonical readings for many decades. His father died in 1849, his brother Stephen in 1850, and his mother in 1851. 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. After residing in Europe for four years to qualify for the Chair of Modern Languages in that College, he entered upon the duties of the same. The Fireside poets. "[64], He and Fanny had six children: Charles Appleton (18441893), Ernest Wadsworth (18451921), Fanny (18471848), Alice Mary (18501928), Edith (18531915), and Anne Allegra (18551934). 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. Written for the 15th reunion of his Bowdoin College class, it is a memorable reflection on aging and is Longfellows most admired ode. [26] In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the author's work ethic. [67], 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. Members included Cornelius Conway Felton, George Stillman Hillard, and Charles Sumner; Sumner became Longfellow's closest friend over the next 30 years. When Longfellow graduated, the college gave him a chair in modern languages, and he worked with translations for the rest of his life. Test. In Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany he was welcomed and honored. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. . How many languages did he speak? 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. Aside from a leg injury that nearly resulted in amputation when he was eight, Henry apparently enjoyed his school friendships and outdoor recreation both in Portland and at his Grandfather Wadsworths new home in Hiram, Maine. Hyatt Waggoner observed the irony of Longfellows having been most appreciated in his own time for A Psalm of Life, noting that though it intends to mean that life is worth living after all, what it effectively does mean is that life must be worth living but the poet cant think why. The famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once penned the beautiful words, "Be still, sad heart! Full Name: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882. Still committed to the native writers of the United States, he wrote a July 1837 review in praise of Hawthornes Twice-Told Tales (1837) even as he turned his own ambitions back toward the writing of poetry. 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. What type of household did Longfellow grow up in? Though its account of Reveres ride is historically inaccurate, the poem created an American legend. Longfellows celebrity as the preeminent poet of America assured him critical respect in the closing decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th; yet, commentators even then recognized his limitations. He was still writing learned essays for the North American Reviewthis time concentrating attention on Teutonic languages, including Swedish and early English. Longfellow gave poetry higher standing within American society than it had enjoyed ever before, not only by exemplifying the appeal of graceful, informed writing to an exceptionally wide reading audience but also by making art itself one of his themes. Bowdoin College, when Henry and Stephen Longfellow arrived for the fall 1822 term, was a small and isolated school with a traditional curriculum and conservative Congregational leadership. Request a transcript here. [126], Margaret Fuller judged Longfellow "artificial and imitative" and lacking force. About this Poet. Translation of the metaphors that he used in his poetry came from legends, mythology, Italian... Teaching at Bowdoin College, 1825 ] in Madrid, he wrote to a friend: `` Victory doubtful... 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