Longfellow's life

Early years. Longfellow was bom on Feb. 27, 1807, in Port­land, in what is now Maine. The area was then part of Massachu­setts. His mother, Zilpah Wadsworth Longfellow, was the daughter of Peleg Wadsworth, a Revolutionary War general. Henry's father, Stephen Longfellow, was a lawyer.

Growing up in Portland, a seaport, gave Longfellow a love of the ocean that would influence his writing throughout his life. A Portland newspaper published Longfellow's first poem when he was 13. He was admitted to Bovvdoin College in Brunswick, Me., at age 15. One of his classmates was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who became a famous writer. While attending Bowdoin, both men de­cided to pursue careers as writers. In a letter to his father, Longfellow wrote, «1 most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature».

Professor and family man. In college, Longfellow showed his skill at learning other languages. After Longfellow graduated at the age of 18, he accepted a position as the college's first professor of modem languages. First, however, he agreed to study in Europe, where he mastered French, Spanish, and Italian, and began to learn German. In the fall of 1829, after more than three years of study, Longfellow returned to Bowdom to take up his new position. He

had to crcatc his own textbooks bccausc the study of modem lan­guages was a new field. Longfellow composed almost no poetry for the next 10 years. Instead, he concentrated on scholarly writing, teaching, translating, and prose writing.

In 1831, Longfellow married Maiy Storer Potter. In 1834, he was offered a new position as Smith professor of modem languages at Harvard College. To prepare himself, Longfellow had to study German literature and language in Europe. In 1835, the couple trav­eled to England, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, his wife suffered a miscarriage and died shortly after­ward in Rotterdam on Nov. 29, 1835.

Longfellow began teaching at Harvard in 1837. Two years ear­lier, his first book, «Outre Men A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea», had been published. It was a collection of European travel sketches modeled on the «Sketch Book» (1819—1820), by the American author Washington Irving. A second prose work, the partly auto­biographical novel «Hyperion» (1839), also drew on Longfellow's travels in Europe. His first volume of poems, «Voices of the Night», also appeared in 1839. A second collection of poetry, «Ballads and Other Poems» (1841), contained several works that helped make Longfellow well known. These included «The Wreck of the Hesperus», The Village Blacksmith», and «Excclsior».

In 1842, Longfellow traveled in Europe for six months. After his return, he published «Poems on Slavery» (1842), which de­scribed his opposition to slavery. In 1842, Frances (Fanny) Applcton accepted Longfellow's marriage proposal, following a seven-year courtship. The couple were married in July 1843. They had six children and enjoyed 18 years of great happiness.

Longfellow had been a boarder at Craigie House in Cambridge, Mass., since 1837. After his marriage to Frances, her wealthy fa­ther bought the house as a wedding gift. Throughout their mar­riage, Longfellow and Frances lived in the historic house (now called Longfellow House). As Longfellow's reputation grew over the years, hundreds of visitors, both famous and unknown, called on the famous poet. The house and grounds now make up the Longfellow National Historic Site.

Author and world cclebrity. Longfellow published his next book of poems, «The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems», in 1845.

The book included iwo antiwar poems, «The Arsenal at Spring­field» and «The Occultation of Orion». «Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie» (1847) established Longfellow as the most popular writer of narrative poetry of his time. He then published his final work of prose fiction, «Kavanagh: A Tale» (1849).

In 1850, Longfellow published another collection of poems, «The Seaside and the Fireside». The title indicates two of the set­tings that conveyed some of the author's most characteristic themes, the sea and the family circle. This volume contains «The Building of the Ship», which draws on Longfellow's familiarity with ship­building in Maine for its primary subject matter. The newly built ship symbolizes the nation, especially in the final stanza, which begins with the lines «Thou, too, sail on, О Ship of State! / Sail on, О Union, strong and great!» A decade later, President Abraham Lincoln was deeply moved by these lines.

In 1854, Longfellow left Harvard to devote full time to writ­ing poetry. The next seven years were the most productive of his career. «Evangeline» had revealed Longfellow's special ability in writing long narrative poems. He returned to this type of work successfully three more times — in «The Song of Hiawatha» (1855), «The Courtship of Miles Standish» (1858), and «Tales of a Wayside Inn» (1863,1872,1873). Longfellow's verse was trans­lated into many languages, and he became known throughout the Western world.

Tragedy struck Longfellow again on July 9, 1861. His wife, Frances, accidentally set her dress afire and was fatally burned, despite Longfellow's efforts to smother the fire with his hands and a rug. Frances was buried on the 18" anniversary of her marriage to Longfellow, who was too badly burned and grief-stricken to attend the funeral. It was 18 years later and just three years before his own death that Longfellow wrote «The Cross of Snow», a sonnet (14- line poem) about Frances that some critics consider his best work: In the long sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face — the face of one long dead — Looks at me from the wall where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led

To its repose; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight.

There is a mountain in the distant West

Thai, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays across of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross 1 wear upon my breast

These eighteen years, through all the

changing scenes And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

By 1868, when he took another trip abroad, Longfellow was known as «ihe grand old man of American letters». While in En­gland, he received honorary decrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities, and was granted private meetings with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Longfellow died in Craigie House on March 24,1882.

Longfellow's works

Narrative poems. In 1847, Longfellow published «Evangeline», the first of his four major narrative poems. The poem is based on the forced removal of French settlers from Nova Scotia by the Brit­ish during the French and Indian War (1754—1763). Two lovers, Gabriel Lajcunesse and Evangeline Bellefontaine, are separated as a result of the removal. The poem describes the lifelong devotion of Evangeline as she searches for Gabriel for many years, finally finding him in old age, dying of the plague. The poem played on the then popular appeal of sentimental love stories and of depic­tions of the American landscape.

Longfellow's «The Song of HiawaLha», published in 1855, was tlie second of his major narrative poems. In this poem, Longfellow captured the humanity and nobility he saw in American Indians. The poem focused on an Indian hero named Hiawatha, whose life, like that of his people, is full of triumphs and tragedies. The poem ends with the death of Hiawatha's wife, Minnehaha, the coming of the white man, and his own symbolic departure into the sunset in his canoe. In the poem, Longfellow presented the Indians' mythol­ogy, which he had read about in the writings of the experts of the day.

Longfellow's «The Courtship of Miles Standish», published in 1858, was his third major narrative poem. It is one of several Longfellow poems that deals with the early history of New En­gland. The poet used unrhymed hexameters (six poetic feet in ev­ery line), as he had done in «Evangeline». But in «The Courtship of Miles Standish», the meter (rhythm) is looser.

The poem tells of a love triangle involving Miles Standish, Priscilla Mullins, and John Alden. Standish is too proud to ask Priscilla to marry him, and asks Alden to propose for him. Priscilla asks Alden why he is acting for Standish, rather than speaking for himself. Alden and Pnscilla marry and are eventually reunited in friendship with Standish.

The strengths of «The Courtship of Miles Standish» are in its characterizations and its depictions of the American landscape. The work portrays the beginnings of American civilization for an audi­ence inclined to have great respect for those origins.

In «Tales of a Wayside bin», the fourth of Longfellow's major narrative works, the poet wrote a series of 22 stories in verse told by seven men gathered at an inn in «SudburyTown» in Massachu­setts. Longfellow began writing «Tales of a Wayside Inn» before Frances' death, but he put it aside temporarily in his grief. His in­spiration for «Tales of a Wayside Inn» came, in part, from his read­ing of the story sequences in Geoffrey Chaucer's «Canterbury Tales» and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron».

Five of Longfellow's tales, including «Paul Rcvere's Ride», have American settings. The others take place in various other countries, including Italy, Spain, France, and Norway. In the col­lection, Longfellow effectively combined his storytelling ability with his scholarly knowledge of the narrative traditions of other lands.

Translations, lyric poems, and dramatic poems. Longfellow translated poetry from 18 languages. His most significant transla­tion, published in 1867, was of Dante Alighieri's medieval poem the «Divine Comedy», Longfellow worked on the translation over a period of several years. A group of writers known as the Dante Club met at Craigie House once a week to offer critical advice on the translation. The group included James Russell Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton.

In the finished work, a pair of Longfellow's original sonnets precedes each of the three major sections of the «Divine Comedy». The sonnets are among Longfellow's best lyric poems. Some schol­ars feel Longfellow made the finest translation of the «Divine Com­edy» in the English language.

During his later years, Longfellow continued to write sensitive lyric poems. Significant lyric poems from this period in Longfellow's life include «The Wind over the Chimney», «The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls», «Palingenesis», «Keramos», and «The Chamber over the Gate», and many sonnets, including «The Cross of Snow». Longfellow was the finest American sonnet writer of the 1800's. Several of the important sonnets from his later years deal with such earlier poets as Dante, John Keats, John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare. Longfellow also wrote many sonnets about the sea, including «The Tides», «The Broken Oar», and «Chimes».

Longfellow also attempted longer dramatic poems in his later years, but generally had little success. Perhaps the most powerful of these is the unfinished work, «Michael Angelo». In the poem, Longfellow ex­plored (lie meaning and value of poetry and artistic creativity.