History Creator / HenryWadsworthLongfellow

->''"Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight."''

::Before the night is out, he finds that actually, [[BreakTheHaughty there is.]]

To practice his language skills, Longfellow, Mary, and two friends went to Europe in 1835 before starting his career at Harvard. Sadly, Mary died following complications of a miscarriage, and Longfellow, falling into a very deep depression, tried to find solace in travel. He eventually found it when a chance meeting in the Swiss Alps brought Longfellow together with the wealthy Appleton family of Boston. It was then he met and fell in love with their daughter, the stylish and beautiful Frances "Fanny" Appleton. On the other hand, Fanny did not return Longfellow's affections.

Spurned, Longfellow returned to Cambridge in 1836 to take up his teaching post. This is also when his creative life truly began; in the next fifteen years, he wrote all the works on which his extraordinary and nearly instantaneous fame came to rest. ''Hyperion'', an autobiographical novel (featuring a thinly veiled account of Longfellow's love for and rejection by Fanny Appleton), appeared in 1839. The poetry collections ''Voices of the Night'' (1839) and ''Ballads and Other Poems'' (1841) were received enthusiastically by an international audience, and his fame as a poet continued to grow. In 1847, he published his epic poem ''Evangeline'', a story of loss and devotion set against the deportation of the Acadian people in 1755. In the meantime, Longfellow worked full-time at Harvard University, where he lectured and directed the Modern Languages department. The department was meant to consist of four men teaching in their native languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and German, and he had to fill in any vacancies.

Longfellow's fame and his seven years of patient wooing finally led Fanny to relent; they married in 1843 and had six children, of whom only one did not survive to adulthood. Fanny's father gave Longfellow Craigie House as a wedding gift, and it would become the place where they raised their children. His friends and acquaintances, including Hawthorne, Holmes, Lowell, Creator/RalphWaldoEmerson, Charles Sumner, and Charles Eliot Norton, would also come to Craigie House to visit.

Longfellow's poetry is praised for its musicality and demonstrates great metrical skill, but is often criticized for being too sentimental and conventional. When Walt Whitman heard of the poet's death, he wrote that, while Longfellow's work "brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows," he was the sort of bard most needed in a materialistic age: "He comes as the poet of melancholy, courtesy, deference—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more and in more valuable directions, for America."

* ''Ballads and Other Poems'' (1842):

* ''The Song of Hiawatha'' (1855):

On March 24, 1882, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died of peritonitis. When Walt Whitman heard of the poet's death, he wrote that, while Longfellow's work "brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows," he was the sort of bard most needed in a materialistic age: "He comes as the poet of melancholy, courtesy, deference—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more and in more valuable directions, for America."

* ''Kéramos and Other Poems (1878):

All who knew him found Longfellow to have a "lively imagination" as well as a thirst for learning. At three he was already well on his way to learning the alphabet. When he was five, his parents sent him to the Portland Academy, a private institution where his older brother, Stephen, was also enrolled. As was the custom for the time, the two brothers focused most of their studies on languages and literature. Always a writer at heart, when Henry wasn't in school he and his childhood friend, William Browne, planned elaborate writing projects. When Longfellow was 13, he published his first poem, "The Battle of Lovell's Pond", under "Henry"; it appeared on the front page of the "Gazette", and no one in his family, except his sister Anne, knew he was the author. He overheard his father tell a friend of his how terrible the poem was, and although he was devastated, these remarks did not stop his literary aspirations.

Henry and Stephen enrolled in Bowdoin College, but because of Henry's young age, they stayed in Portland for their first year. They moved to Brunswick, Maine in 1822 to start their second year in Bowdoin, graduating in 1825; Creator/NathanielHawthorne, another famous writer, was a fellow classmate who became his lifelong friend and also graduated from the college that year. During their time in Bowdoin, Henry's passion for literature grew. Stephen wanted his brother to prosper in the future and suggested that he study law. Henry was willing to acquiesce, but his passion for literature was way too strong to give up. Stephen ultimately relented and may have played a role in securing his brother's professorship in teaching European languages — then a relatively new academic field — in the college.

To practice his language skills, Longfellow, Mary, and two friends went to Europe in 1835 before starting his career at Harvard. Sadly, Mary died following complications of a miscarriage, and Longfellow fell into a very deep depression and tried to find solace in travel. He eventually found it when a chance meeting in the Swiss Alps brought Longfellow together with the wealthy Appleton family of Boston. It was then he met and fell in love with their daughter, the stylish and beautiful Frances "Fanny" Appleton. On the other hand, Fanny did not return Longfellow's affections.

Spurned, Longfellow returned to Cambridge in 1836 to take up his teaching post. This is also when his creative life truly began; in the next fifteen years, he wrote all the works on which his extraordinary and nearly instantaneous fame came to rest. ''Hyperion'', an autobiographical novel (featuring a thinly veiled account of Longfellow's love for and rejection by Fanny Appleton), appeared in 1839. The poetry collections ''Voices of the Night'' (1839) and ''Ballads and Other Poems'' (1841) were received enthusiastically by an international audience, and his fame as a poet continued to grow. In 1847, he published his epic poem ''Evangeline'', a story of loss and devotion set against the deportation of the Acadian people in 1755. In the meantime, Longfellow worked full-time at Harvard University, where he lectured, and directed the Modern Languages department. The department was meant to consist of four men teaching in their native languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and German, and he had to fill in any vacancies.

Longfellow's fame and his seven years of patient wooing finally led Fanny to relent; they married in 1843 and had six children, of whom only one did not survive to adulthood. Fanny's father gave Longfellow Craigie House as a wedding gift, and it would become the place where they raised their children. His friends and acquaintances, including Creator/RalphWaldoEmerson, Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Sumner, Charles Eliot Norton, and James Russell Lowell would also come to Craigie House to visit.

In 1854, Longfellow decided to quit teaching to devote all his time to poetry, and he became one of America's first self-sustaining writers. During that time, he published ''Hiawatha'' (1855), a long poem about Native American life; and ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfMilesStandish and Other Poems'' (1858).

On July 9, 1861, Fanny's clothes caught fire and she was horribly burned; she may have accidentally stepped on a self-lighting match or lit her clothes using a candle to melt sealing wax. Longfellow himself unsuccessfully tried to put out the flames, but his hands and face were burned (he is thought to have grown his famous beard to cover up the burns on his face). Fanny succumbed to her injuries the next day, and Longfellow, profoundly saddened, slowed considerably in writing original poems; one of those poems was "The Cross of Snow", his only poem that directly addresses his grief. The greatest part of his creative energy went instead into translating 'The Divine Comedy', which he eventually published in 1867.

Longfellow continued to write poetry and his fame continued to grow, receiving honors of all kinds from Europe and America; he once met UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria, who read and appreciated his works; and got acquainted with Creator/AlfredLordTennyson, John Ruskin, Creator/WaltWhitman, and even Creator/OscarWilde. His 70th birthday, in 1877, even became a national celebration. When he turned 72, he received as a gift a chair that bore a brass plate on the seat with an inscription: "To the author of 'The Village Blacksmith,' This chair made from the wood of the spreading chestnut tree is presented as an expression of grateful regard and veneration by the children of Cambridge, who with their friends join in the best wishes and congratulations on this anniversary."

* ''Ballads and Other Poems'' (1842)
* ''Poems on Slavery'' (1842)
* ''The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems'' (1845)
* ''Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie'' (1847)
* ''The Seaside and the Fireside'' (1850)
* ''Kavanagh'' (1851)
* ''The Song of Hiawatha'' (1855)
* ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfMilesStandish and Other Poems'' (1858)
* ''Tales of a Wayside Inn'' (1863)
* ''Flower-de-Luce'' (1866)
* A translation of ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' (1867)
* ''Christus: A Mystery'' (1871)
* ''The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems'' (1875)
* ''Kéramos and Other Poems (1878)
* ''Ultima Thule'' (1880)
* ''In the Harbor'' (1882)

-->-- '''Henry Wadsworth Longfellow''', Outre Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea

* {{Homage}}: "Divina Commedia" is a sonnet cycle Longfellow wrote while translating The Divine Comedy. It bears witness to the epic poem's influence on the world, on Italy and beyond.

IN 1861, the Civil War began, and in 1863, Longfellow's son Charley ran off to join the fighting, writing to his father: "I have tried to resist the temptation of going without your leave but cannot any longer." Longfellow's three daughters: Edith, Alice, and Anne Allegra, also appeared on the battlefield: shortly after the fighting ended at Gettysburg in early July 1863, a copy of a painting of the three daughters was found. The identity of its owner has never been discovered.

* ''Outre Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea'' (1835):
* ''The Voices of the Night'' (1839):

* ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' (1867)

Henry and Stephen enrolled in Bowdoin College, but because of Henry's young age, they stayed in Portland for their first year. They moved to Brunswick, Maine in 1822 to start their second year in Bowdoin, graduating in 1825; Creator/NathanielHawthorne, another famous writer, was a fellow classmate who became his lifelong friend, and also graduated from the college that year. During their time in Bowdoin, Henry's passion for literature grew. Stephen wanted his brother to prosper in the future and suggested that he study law. Henry was willing to acquiesce, but his passion for literature was way too strong to give up. Stephen ultimately relented and may have played a role in securing his brother's professorship in teaching European languages — then a relatively new academic field — in the college.

* ''The Voices of the Night''
* ''Ballads and Other Poems''
* ''Poems on Slavery''
* ''The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems''
* ''Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie''
* ''The Seaside and the Fireside''
* ''The Song of Hiawatha''
* ''Birds of Passage''
* ''Tales of a Wayside Inn''

* DeathOfTheOldGods: In the canto "The Wraith of Odin", from ''The Saga of King Olaf'' (in ''Tales of a Wayside Inn'', 1863), King Olaf, who is about to convert Norway to Christianity, is feasting when an grey-bearded and one-eyed old man in a cloak and hood appears at the gates "shivering" from the cold, and is invited by King Olaf to warm himself in the hall. The whole evening the stranger entertains the king with his extraordinary knowledge of old tales and poetry, but in the morning the man has mysteriously disappeared, even though he stayed in the same bedroom with the king, with the doors still locked from the inside. King Olaf immediately infers that the stranger was Odin, but instead of being frightened, he declares that Christianity is already victorious, because the stranger was the ''ghost'' (= wraith) of Odin:

Spurned, Longfellow returned to Cambridge in 1836 to take up his teaching post. This is also when his creative life truly began; in the next fifteen years, he wrote all the works on which his extraordinary and nearly instantaneous fame came to rest. ''Hyperion'', an autobiographical novel (featuring a thinly veiled account of Longfellow's love for and rejection by Fanny Appleton), appeared in 1839. The poetry collections ''Voices in the Night'' (1839) and ''Ballads and Poems'' (1841) were received enthusiastically by an international audience, and his fame as a poet continued to grow. In 1847, he published his epic poem ''Evangeline'', a story of loss and devotion set against the deportation of the Acadian people in 1755. In the meantime, Longfellow worked full-time at Harvard University, where he lectured, and directed the Modern Languages department. The department was meant to consist of four men teaching in their native languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and German, and he had to fill in any vacancies.

The one-eyed stranger was his wraith."''

On July 9, 1861, Fanny's clothes caught fire and she was horribly burned; she may have accidentally stepped on a self-lighting match or lit her clothes using a candle to melt sealing wax. Longfellow himself unsuccessfully tried to put out the flames, but his hands and face were burned (he is thought to have grown his famous beard to cover up the burns on his face). Fanny succumbed to her injuries the next day, and Longfellow, profoundly saddened, slowed considerably in writing original poems; one of those poems was "The Cross of Snow", his only poem that directly addresses his grief. The greatest part of his creative energy went instead into translating 'The Divine Comedy'', which he eventually published in 1867.

All who knew him found Longfellow to have a "lively imagination" as well as a thirst for learning. At three he was already well on his way to learning the alphabet. When he was five, his parents sent him to the Portland Academy, a private institution where his older brother, Stephen, was also enrolled. As was the custom for the time, the two brothers focused most of their studies on languages and literature. Always a writer at heart, when Henry wasn't in school he and his childhood friend, William Browne, planned elaborate writing projects. When Longfellow was 13, he published his first poem, "The Battle of Lovell's Pond", under "Henry"; it appeared on the front page of the "Gazette", and no one in his family, except his sister Anne, with whom he shared the secret. He overheard his father tell a friend of his how terrible the poem was, and although he was devastated, these remarks did not stop his literary aspirations.

On March 24, 1882, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died of peritonitis. When Walt Whitman heard of the poet's death, he wrote that, while Longfellow's work "brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows," he was the sort of bard most needed in a materialistic age: "He comes as the poet of melancholy, courtesy, deference—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more and in more valuable directions, for America."

-->-- '''Henry Wadsworth Longfellow''', Outre-Mer

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''. He was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Literature/TheDivineComedy and was also one of the Fireside Poets from New England (which included William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.).

After graduating from Bowdoin College, Longfellow studied modern languages in Europe for three years, then returned to Bowdoin to teach them. In 1831 he married Mary Storer Potter of Portland, a former classmate, and soon published his first book, a description of his travels called Outre-Mer ("Overseas"). But in November 1835, during a second trip to Europe, Longfellow's life was shaken when his wife died during a miscarriage. The young teacher spent a grief-stricken year in Germany and Switzerland.

Longfellow took a position at Harvard in 1836. Three years later, at the age of thirty-two, he published his first collection of poems, Voices of the Night, followed in 1841 by Ballads and Other Poems. Many of these poems ("A Psalm of Life," for example) showed people triumphing over adversity, and in a struggling young nation that theme was inspiring. Both books were very popular, but Longfellow's growing duties as a professor left him little time to write more. In addition, Frances Appleton, a young woman from Boston, had refused his proposal of marriage.

Frances finally accepted his proposal the following spring, ushering in the happiest eighteen years of Longfellow's life. The couple had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood, and the marriage gave him new confidence. In 1847, he published ''Evangeline'', a story of loss and devotion set against the deportation of the Acadian people in 1755.

In 1854, Longfellow decided to quit teaching to devote all his time to poetry. He published ''Hiawatha'', a long poem about Native American life, and ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfMilesStandish and Other Poems''. Both books were immensely successful, but Longfellow was now preoccupied with national events. With the country moving toward civil war, he wrote "Paul Revere's Ride," a call for courage in the coming conflict.

A few months after the war began in 1861, Frances Longfellow was sealing an envelope with wax when her dress caught fire. Despite her husband's desperate attempts to save her, she died the next day. Profoundly saddened, Longfellow published nothing for the next two years. He found comfort in his family and in reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. (Later, he produced its first American translation.) Tales of a Wayside Inn, largely written before his wife's death, was published in 1863.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, the poet was fifty-eight. His most important work was finished, but his fame kept growing. In London alone, twenty-four different companies were publishing his work. His poems were popular throughout the English-speaking world, and they were widely translated, making him the most famous American of his day. His admirers included Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, and Charles Baudelaire.

From 1866 to 1880, Longfellow published seven more books of poetry, and his seventy-fifth birthday in 1882 was celebrated across the country. But his health was failing, and he died the following month, on March 24. When Walt Whitman heard of the poet's death, he wrote that, while Longfellow's work "brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows," he was the sort of bard most needed in a materialistic age: "He comes as the poet of melancholy, courtesy, deference—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more and in more valuable directions, for America."

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. He was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Literature/TheDivineComedy and was also one of the Fireside Poets from New England (which included William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.).

After graduating from Bowdoin College, Longfellow studied modern languages in Europe for three years, then returned to Bowdoin to teach them. In 1831 he married Mary Storer Potter of Portland, a former classmate, and soon published his first book, a description of his travels called Outre Mer ("Overseas"). But in November 1835, during a second trip to Europe, Longfellow's life was shaken when his wife died during a miscarriage. The young teacher spent a grief-stricken year in Germany and Switzerland.

Frances finally accepted his proposal the following spring, ushering in the happiest eighteen years of Longfellow's life. The couple had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood, and the marriage gave him new confidence. In 1847, he published Evangeline, a book-length poem about what would now be called "ethnic cleansing." The poem takes place as the British drive the French from Nova Scotia, and two lovers are parted, only to find each other years later when the man is about to die.

In 1854, Longfellow decided to quit teaching to devote all his time to poetry. He published Hiawatha, a long poem about Native American life, and The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems. Both books were immensely successful, but Longfellow was now preoccupied with national events. With the country moving toward civil war, he wrote "Paul Revere's Ride," a call for courage in the coming conflict.

-->''"Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight."''
-->--'''Henry Wadsworth Longfellow''', Outre-Mer

-->--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer