Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow wrote several epic poems. An epic poem is a long poem that tells a story, typically about a hero, and centers on uncommon achievements and events. He achieved a national reputation with the publication of Evangeline , a highly sentimental narrative poem on the expulsion driving out of the French from Acadia. He wrote Evangeline in dactylic hexameters. Dactyls are poetic feet of three syllables, with the first syllable long or accented and the others short or unaccented. Hexameters are verses having six poetic feet. The book was enthusiastically received. Longfellow next released the unimaginative romantic novel Kavanagh and By the Seaside and the Fireside , which contained the very popular nationalistic designed to arouse pride in one's country poem "The Building of the Ship": In Longfellow resigned his Harvard professorship to devote himself to his writing career.

He wrote in trochees or poetic feet of two syllables, the first long or accented and the second short or unaccented. Following the tragic death of Longfellow's second wife in a fire in their home in , he busied himself with the Tales of a Wayside Inn , in which various speakers, sitting around a fireplace, narrate stories. Other tales appeared in and Longfellow also translated poetry from eighteen languages.

His most significant translation, published in , was of a long poem by the medieval writer Dante Alighieri — called the Divine Comedy.

In the last phase of Longfellow's long career, he worked on another major project, The Christus: Completed in , this work was concerned with "various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages. Several more volumes of Longfellow's verse were issued before his death on March 24, , in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After his death, he became the first American whose bust sculpture of one's head was placed in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, London, England.

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To the modern reader, Longfellow's sentimental and optimistic poetry often sounds old-fashioned. He used his wide knowledge of the literature of other countries as a source for both the form and content of many of his poems. I say she shall! It is not pride , but the madness of passion". That bridge was replaced in by a new bridge which was later renamed the Longfellow Bridge. In late , Longfellow published Hyperion , inspired by his trips abroad [53] and his unsuccessful courtship of Fanny Appleton.

The small collection Poems on Slavery was published in 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". Longfellow's thin books; spirited and polished like its forerunners; but the topic would warrant a deeper tone". On May 10, , after seven years, Longfellow received a letter from Fanny Appleton agreeing to marry him.

He was too restless to take a carriage and walked 90 minutes to meet her at her house. My morning and my evening star of love! He and Fanny had six children: Nathan Cooley Keep administered ether to the mother as the first obstetric anesthetic in the United States. On June 14, , Longfellow held a farewell dinner party at his Cambridge home for his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne , who was preparing to move overseas. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from Harvard in July 9, [70] was a hot day, and 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.

He stifled the flames with his body as best he could, but she was already badly burned. She was in and out of consciousness throughout the night and was administered ether. She died shortly after Longfellow was devastated by her death and never fully recovered; he occasionally resorted to laudanum and ether to deal with his grief. Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri 's Divine Comedy. To aid him in perfecting the translation and reviewing proofs, he invited friends to meetings every Wednesday starting in During the s, Longfellow supported abolitionism and especially hoped for reconciliation between the northern and southern states after the American Civil War.

His son was injured during the war, and he wrote the poem "Christmas Bells", later the basis of the carol I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. He wrote in his journal in On August 22, , a female admirer traveled to Longfellow's house in Cambridge and, unaware to whom she was speaking, asked him: The visitor then asked if he had died here. He endured the pain for several days with the help of opium before he died surrounded by family on Friday, March His last few years were spent translating the poetry of Michelangelo.

Longfellow never considered it complete enough to be published during his lifetime, but a posthumous edition was collected in Scholars generally regard the work as autobiographical, reflecting the translator as an aging artist facing his impending death. Much of Longfellow's work is categorized as lyric poetry , but he experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a very private man, Longfellow did not often add autobiographical elements to his poetry. Two notable exceptions are dedicated to the death of members of his family. Longfellow often used didacticism in his poetry, though he focused on it less in his later years. In "Nature", for example, death is depicted as bedtime for a cranky child.

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Longfellow rarely wrote on current subjects and seemed detached from contemporary American concerns. In Kavanagh , a character says:.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Biography, Poems, & Facts | www.newyorkethnicfood.com

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.

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. In , he published The Poets and Poetry of Europe , an 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".

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Biography

In , Longfellow oversaw a volume anthology called Poems of Places which collected poems representing several geographical locations, including European, Asian, and Arabian countries. You are wasting time that should be bestowed upon original production". Longfellow's early collections Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems made him instantly popular. I never knew that he was a great man until I began to research about it. I again wish that he could be known throughout the world.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. Under a spreading chestnut tree The village smithy stands; The Smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. His hair is crisp, and black, and long, His face is like the tan;.