Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
born Feb. 27, 1807, Portland, Mass., U.S.
died March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Mass.

U.S. poet.

Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College and traveled in Europe before joining the modern-language faculties of Bowdoin (1829–35) and Harvard (1836–54). His Voices of the Night (1839), containing "The Psalm of Life" and "The Light of the Stars," first won him popularity. Ballads and Other Poems (1841), including "The Wreck of the Hesperus" and "The Village Blacksmith," swept the nation, as did his long poem Evangeline (1847). With Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), including "Paul Revere's Ride," he became the best-loved American poet of the 19th century. He later translated Dante's Divine Comedy (1867) and published his intended masterpiece, Christus, a trilogy on Christianity (1872). The hallmarks of his verse are gentleness, simplicity, and an idealized vision of the world.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Historical Pictures Service, Chicago

* * *

▪ American poet
born Feb. 27, 1807, Portland, Mass. [now in Maine], U.S.
died March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Mass.
 the most popular American poet in the 19th century.

      Longfellow attended private schools and the Portland Academy. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. At college he was attracted especially to Sir Walter Scott's romances and Washington Irving's Sketch Book, and his verses appeared in national magazines. He was so fluent in translating that on graduation he was offered a professorship in modern languages provided that he would first study in Europe.

      On the continent he learned French, Spanish, and Italian but refused to settle down to a regimen of scholarship at any university. In 1829 he returned to the United States to be a professor and librarian at Bowdoin. He wrote and edited textbooks, translated poetry and prose, and wrote essays on French, Spanish, and Italian literature, but he felt isolated. When he was offered a professorship at Harvard, with another opportunity to go abroad, he accepted and set forth for Germany in 1835. On this trip he visited England, Sweden, and The Netherlands. In 1835, saddened by the death of his first wife, whom he had married in 1831, he settled at Heidelberg, where he fell under the influence of German Romanticism.

      In 1836 Longfellow returned to Harvard and settled in the famous Craigie House, which was later given to him as a wedding present when he remarried in 1843. His travel sketches, Outre-Mer (1835), did not succeed. 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. That same year Longfellow published Hyperion, a romantic novel idealizing his European travels. In 1841 his Ballads and Other Poems, containing such favourites as “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and “The Village Blacksmith,” swept the nation. The antislavery sentiments he expressed in Poems on Slavery (1842), however, lacked the humanity and power of John Greenleaf Whittier's denunciations on the same theme. Longfellow was more at home in Evangeline (1847), a narrative poem that reached almost every literate home in the United States. It is a sentimental tale of two lovers separated when British soldiers expel the Acadians (French colonists) from what is now Nova Scotia. The lovers, Evangeline and Gabriel, are reunited years later as Gabriel is dying.

      Longfellow presided over Harvard's modern-language program for 18 years and then left teaching in 1854. In 1855, using Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's 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). Its appeal to the public was immediate. Hiawatha is an Ojibwa Indian who, after various mythic feats, becomes his people's leader and marries Minnehaha before departing for the Isles of the Blessed. Both the poem and its singsong metre have been frequent objects of parody.

      Longfellow's long poem The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) was another great popular success. But the death in 1861 of his second wife after she accidentally set her dress on fire plunged him into melancholy. Driven by the need for spiritual relief, he translated the Divine Comedy (Divine Comedy, The) of Dante Alighieri, producing one of the most notable translations to that time, and wrote six sonnets on Dante that are among his finest poems.

      The Tales of a Wayside Inn, modeled roughly on Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and published in 1863, reveals his narrative gift. The first poem, “Paul Revere's Ride,” became a national favourite. 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, Mass. Though its account of Revere's ride is historically inaccurate, the poem created an American legend. Longfellow published in 1872 what he intended to be his masterpiece, Christus: A Mystery, a trilogy dealing with Christianity from its beginning. 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). Long after his death in 1882, however, these neglected later works were seen to contain some of his most effective writing.

      During his lifetime Longfellow was loved and admired both at home and abroad. 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. Sweetness, gentleness, simplicity, and a romantic vision shaded by melancholy are the characteristic features of Longfellow's poetry. He possessed great metrical skill, but he failed to capture the American spirit like his great contemporary Walt Whitman, and his work generally lacks emotional depth and imaginative power. Some years after Longfellow's 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. This harsh critical assessment, which tried to reduce him to the status of a mere hearthside rhymer, was perhaps as unbalanced as the adulation he had received during his lifetime. Some of Longfellow's sonnets and other lyrics are still among the finest in American poetry, and Hiawatha, “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” Evangeline, and “Paul Revere's Ride” have become inseparable parts of the American heritage. Longfellow's 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.

Additional Reading
Edward Wagenknecht, Longfellow: A Full-Length Portrait (1955), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: His Poetry and Prose (1986); Cecil Brown Williams, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1964); Newton Arvin, Longfellow: His Life and Work (1963, reprinted 1977).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth — ► (1807 82) Poeta estadounidense. Autor de Evangeline y La canción de Hiawatha. * * * (27 feb. 1807, Portland, Mass., EE.UU.–24 mar. 1882, Cambridge, Mass.). Poeta estadounidense. Longfellow se graduó en Bowdoin College y viajó por Europa antes… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Longfellow,Henry Wadsworth — Long·fel·low (lôngʹfĕl ō, lŏngʹ ), Henry Wadsworth. 1807 1882. American writer. Extremely popular in the United States in his lifetime, his works include The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and a translation (1865 1867) of Dante s The Divine Comedy. * *… …   Universalium

  • Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth — (1807 1882)    Poet, was b. at Portland, Maine, the s. of Stephen L., a lawyer. From childhood he cared little for games, but was always devoted to reading. In 1822 he was sent to Bowdoin Coll., of which his f. was a Trustee, and after graduating …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH —    American poet, born at Portland, Maine; after studying on the Continent, became professor of Modern Languages in Harvard University; wrote Hyperion, a romance in prose, and a succession of poems as well as lyrics, among the former Evangeline,… …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth —    см. Лонгфелло, Генри Уодсворт …   Писатели США. Краткие творческие биографии

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Longfellow in 1868 by Julia Margaret Cameron Born February 27, 1807(1807 02 27) Portland, Maine, United States Died …   Wikipedia

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 de febrero de 1807 – 24 de marzo de 1882) fue un poeta estadounidense que escribió trabajos que aún hoy siguen gozando de fama popular, entre los que están The Song of Hiawatha, Paul… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Daguerreotypie von Southworth Hawes (um 1850) …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Henry Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 février 1807, Portland, Maine, États Unis 24 mars 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts, États Unis) est un poète américain, auteur de nombreux poèmes encore célèbres aux États Unis,… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — noun United States poet remembered for his long narrative poems (1807 1882) • Syn: ↑Longfellow • Instance Hypernyms: ↑poet * * * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [Henry Wadsworth Longfellow] …   Useful english dictionary

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”