[5] He was the second of eight children. It's more full and complex than language we can experience it but not explain it. [120] John Greenleaf Whittier suggested that it was this massive correspondence which led to Longfellow's death: "My friend Longfellow was driven to death by these incessant demands". 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. Born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine, USA , United States. Like . [78] He expressed his grief in the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" (1879) which he wrote 18 years later to commemorate her death:[43], Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. He also found himself overburdened with instructional tasksintroducing students to the rudiments of various languages and developing teaching materials he could use in classes to replace rote recitation of grammar with literary conversation and translation. Analyzes how henry wadsworth longfellow, born in portland, maine on february 27th, 1807, opened the eyes of americans everywhere through his rhythmic poetry. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. [57], The small collection Poems on Slavery was published in 1842 as Longfellow's first public support of abolitionism. Omissions? Narrative poetry. 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. Birth Year: 1807. Now he plunged into work, translating at the rate of a canto a day. He once attended a ball without her and noted, "The lights seemed dimmer, the music sadder, the flowers fewer, and the women less fair. 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. [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. Bowdoin offers Longfellow a professorship of modern languages, provided that he prepare himself for the position with a period of European travel, a proposition he . [135] As a friend once wrote, "no other poet was so fully recognized in his lifetime". Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed from a Skull 9. [66] His literary income was increasing considerably; in 1840, he had made $219 from his work, but 1850 brought him $1,900. "[104] A London critic in the London Quarterly Review, however, condemned all American poetry"with two or three exceptions, there is not a poet of mark in the whole union"but he singled out Longfellow as one of those exceptions. However, as Longfellow himself wrote, the poems were "so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast". and cease repining; Behind the cloud is the sun still shining; Thy fate is a common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall." Longfellow is rightrain comes at different times to all of us. His mother, Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow, was the daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who had served in the American Revolution. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882) was America's most beloved nineteenth-century poet, . [24] He traveled to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, back to France, then to England before returning to the United States in mid-August 1829. 1807-1882 Ranked #33 in the top 500 poets. [4] He was named after his mother's brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who had died three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli. [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. 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. About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was honored in March 2007 when the United States Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating him. 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. [104] Even so, he called for the development of high quality American literature, as did many others during this period. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. As was the custom for the time, the two brothers focused most of their studies on languages and literature. 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. Returning to Maine in summer 1829, Longfellow as a young professor soon found himself immersed in the unpoetic routines of pedagogy. 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. [7] They included Mayflower Pilgrims Richard Warren, William Brewster, and John and Priscilla Alden through their daughter Elizabeth Pabodie, the first child born in Plymouth Colony.[8]. In 1884 he was honoured by the placing of a memorial bust in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey in London, the first American to be so recognized. The most warmly received of such poems composed in the 1850s, however, was The Childrens Hour, which reflected the poets delight in his small daughters. He also wrote novels and translated Dante's "Divine Comedy" into English. 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. While coping with private tragedy at home, he suffered the additional trauma of the Civil War. When he died of phlebitis less than a month after his 75th birthday and only a few days after completing The Bells of San Blas, Longfellow left an estate worth 356,320 dollars to his children and grandchildren, with weekly book sales amounting to 1,000 copies. When he was offered a professorship at Harvard, with another opportunity to go abroad, he accepted and set forth for Germany in 1835. Page I T A L E S OF A WAYSIDE INN BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 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. Other poems had local settingsfor example, The Bridge, which contrasted Longfellows newfound personal peace with the melancholy of his earlier years in a reflection on the bridge over the Charles River near his home. In turn, he received homage from practitioners of other arts: composers set many of his poems to music, and artists illustrated many of his scenes. Longfellows achievements in fictional and nonfictional prose, in a striking variety of poetic forms and modes, and in translation from many European languages resulted in a remarkably productive and influential literary career. This collection was Longfellows version of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales or Giovanni Boccaccios Decameron. [102] He was inspired, for example, by Norse mythology for "The Skeleton in Armor" and by Finnish legends for The Song of Hiawatha.[103]. Snow-Flakes. LONGFELLOWATBOWDOIN. American poet and educator. [87], On August 22, 1879, a female admirer traveled to Longfellow's house in Cambridge and, unaware to whom she was speaking, asked him: "Is this the house where Longfellow was born?" [15] He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings. The lady says she will not! [89] He had been suffering from peritonitis. It comes not back again. Longfellow was grief- stricken over her death, and wrote poems that reflected his feelings. 'When We Two Parted' 8. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is born on 27 February in Portland, Maine, the second of eight children of the lawyer Stephen Longfellow and his wife, Zilpah Wadsworth Longfellow. "Not yet", he replied. Despite the frustrations Longfellow experienced in his new vocation, there was personal happiness. (Even The Birds of Killingworth was adapted from an English story.) [61] They were soon married; Nathan Appleton bought the Craigie House as a wedding present, and Longfellow lived there for the rest of his life. More important, Longfellow turned back to poetry after that second European journey and found encouragement in the warm reception of a group of poems he classified loosely as psalms. Although he never received any money from Knickerbockers, where several of these poems first appeared, Longfellow discovered an appreciative public response to the sad wisdom he had distilled from the disappointments of life; sadness empowered him to speak comforting, encouraging words to the many readers who responded gratefully to A Psalm of Life, The Reaper and the Flowers, The Light of Stars, Footsteps of Angels, and Midnight Mass for the Dying Year. He collected these and other early poems in Voices of the Night, like Hyperion published in 1839, and followed up on that success with Ballads and Other Poems (1842), which featured short narrative poems such as The Skeleton in Armor and The Wreck of the Hesperus, a character sketch that he thought of as another psalm titled The Village Blacksmith, and a poem of Romantic inspiration, Excelsior. He was exploring American subject matter in many of these poemseven in The Skeleton in Armor, which drew an unexpected link between medieval Scandinavian war songs and New England antiquities. Died on March 24, 1882 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Page III CONTENTS. He was engaged in ambitious projects. "There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; Answer and Explanation: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had six children. On July 9, 1861, Fanny Longfellow suffered fatal burns when the candle she was using to seal packets of her daughters curls ignited her dress; she died the next day. 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. 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