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What happened to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's wife?
1855-1882. The last and somewhat diminished stage of Longfellow's career began in 1861 with the tragic death of his wife Fanny. In an accident on July 9, 1861 at the Longfellow's Cambridge home, Fanny's gauzy clothing caught fire and she was enveloped in flames. She died the next day.
What is the name of Longfellow's first wife?
Mary Storer PotterMary Storer Potter became Longfellow's first wife in 1831 and died four years later.
Who was Longfellow's wife?
Fanny Appleton Longfellowm. 1843–1861Mary Storer Potterm. 1831–1835Henry Wadsworth Longfellow/Wife
Was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Romantic poet?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27, 1807 – died March 24, 1882) was an American poet of the Romantic period. He served as a professor at Harvard University and was an adept linguist, traveling throughout Europe and immersing himself in European culture and poetry, which he emulated in his poetry.
Why did Longfellow wear a thick beard?
Longfellow was himself burned trying to save her and grew his famous beard to cover the scars left behind on his face. He died in 1882, a month after people around the country celebrated his 75th birthday.
What is Longfellow's most famous poem?
Longfellow (1807-82) is best-known for The Song of Hiawatha, and for growing a beard to hide the marks of a family tragedy, but he also wrote many other celebrated poems.
What poets wife died in a fire?
In 1861 tragedy struck again. Longfellow lost his second wife in a house fire, and with her, his poetic muse. He devoted the last years of his life to his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, a work that is still in print.
Where is Longfellow buried?
Mount Auburn Cemetery, MAHenry Wadsworth Longfellow / Place of burialLongfellow died at home on March 24, 1882 after going to bed with severe stomach pain. He was buried with both of his wives at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Who wrote I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day?
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowI Heard the Bells on Christmas Day / LyricistLongfellow's 'I Hear the Bells on Christmas Day' has two stanzas you rarely hear. The words for one of Christmas's most beautiful carols was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Dec. 25, 1863, in response to the near fatal wound his son, Charles Appleton Wadsworth, received at the Mine Run campaign in Virginia.
How beautiful is the rain poem?
How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs! How it gushes and struggles out.
What did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow believe?
As his brother wrote in his memoir, “He [Longfellow] did not care to talk much on theological points; but he believed in the supremacy of good in the world and in the universe.”45 Transcendentalism had similar beliefs about goodness, and Longfellow recognized Emerson, the poet-philosopher, as a religious leader in a ...
What was unique about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a Harvard scholar versed in several European languages. He was heavily influenced by Romanticism and made a name as a poet and novelist with works like Hyperion, Evangeline, Poems on Slavery and The Song of Hiawatha. He was also known for his translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy.
What is the meaning of Longfellow?
a writer of poems (the term is usually reserved for writers of good poetry)
How old was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when he died?
75 years (1807–1882)Henry Wadsworth Longfellow / Age at death
Where is Longfellow buried?
Mount Auburn Cemetery, MAHenry Wadsworth Longfellow / Place of burialLongfellow died at home on March 24, 1882 after going to bed with severe stomach pain. He was buried with both of his wives at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
How beautiful is the rain poem?
How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs! How it gushes and struggles out.
What is the hymn to the night?
Longfellow's poem "Hymn to the Night," in Voices of the Night, conveys the poet's debt to Novalis and his romantic kinship with the "calm, majestic presence of the Night." However, "A Psalm of Life," one of the best-known poems from this first volume, reflects the influence of the famed German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). His forceful philosophy suggested to Longfellow the direction of his hymn to action: "Life is real! Life is earnest! / Be not like dumb, driven cattle! / Be a hero in the strife." Voices of the Night was well received, and within a few years forty-three thousand copies had been sold. Longfellow's audience as a popular writer was assured.
What is an epic poem?
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 (1847), 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.
What was the name of the poem that Longfellow wrote about Native Americans?
In 1854 Longfellow resigned his Harvard professorship to devote himself to his writing career. A year later he published The Song of Hiawatha , a narrative epic poem on the Native American. For this work Longfellow drew on Henry Schoolcraft's books on Native Americans.
What countries did Longfellow write in?
Several of his poems are set in other countries including Italy, Spain, France, and Norway. It should be remembered that Longfellow wrote for the common man. In his elegant and clear style he presented popular American values, such as the family circle and heroism.
What was the name of the book that Longfellow wrote?
In 1833 he published Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea, a collection of picturesque (forming a pleasing picture) travel essays modeled after Washington Irving's (1783–1859) Sketch Book. In 1834 Longfellow accepted a professorship at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What was the last project Longfellow worked on?
In the last phase of Longfellow's long career, he worked on another major project, The Christus: A Mystery. Completed in 1872, this work was concerned with "various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages." The work came in three parts. An earlier work, The Golden Legend (1851), formed part II; part III, The New England Tragedies (1868), dealt with Puritan (a religious group in New England that stressed a strict moral code) themes; and, finally, part I, The Divine Tragedy (1871), concerned the life of Jesus Christ.
What is Craigie House?
Craigie House as a wedding present. This house became a famous visiting place for Longfellow's admirers. It is now called Longfellow House and is a national historic site. It holds most of the original furnishings from Longfellow's time, including his personal library of over ten thousand books.
What was the name of the house Longfellow settled in?
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 1842 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 that same year, 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.
What is the name of the poem that Longfellow wrote about the ride of Revere?
Longfellow published in 1872 what he intended to be his masterpiece, Christus: A Mystery, a trilogy dealing with Christianity from its beginning.
What are the characteristics of Longfellow's poetry?
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 lacked 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.
What was Longfellow's antislavery sentiment?
Longfellow was more at home in Evangeline (1847), a narrative poem that reached almost every literate home in the United States.
What is the meaning of the poem Midnight Ride?
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, Massachusetts.
What is the song metre of the courtship of Miles Standish?
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.
Where did Longfellow go to college?
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.
What is Longfellow famous for?
He was famous for writing lyric poems, which were popular for their musicality and stories of mythology and legend. His poetry reflects great versatility, generally utilizing anapestic and trochaic forms, blank verse, heroic couplets, ballads and sonnets. Despite being criticized for imitating European styles, Longfellow became ...
What did Harvard do to honor Dante Alighieri?
To honor his role with translations, Harvard established the Longfellow Institute in 1994, dedicated to literature written in the United States in languages other than English.
What bridge did Longfellow cross?
He still remains as the only American poet represented with a bust. During his courtship period with Francis, Longfellow frequently crossed the Boston Bridge to reach Appleton home in Beacon Hill. That bridge was replaced in 1906 by a new bridge, which was later renamed the Longfellow Bridge.
What was the play that Longfellow wrote about his experiences in Spain?
On his return, Longfellow published a play in 1842, titled “The Spanish Student”. This play was based on his memories of the days spent in Spain during 1820s. The same year, he published a small poem collection, “Poems on Slavery”, which was his first public support of abolitionism.
What languages did Longfellow study?
During his year long trip, he studied German as well as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic. Longfellow returned to United States in 1836 and took the professorship at Harvard University. In 1839, he published his poetry collection, “Voices of the Night”.
What books did Longfellow write inspired by Irving?
The same year he published several nonfiction and fiction prose pieces inspired by Washington Irving, including “The Indian Summer” and “The Bald Eagle”. Longfellow also published a travel book, “Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea” during this time.
What school did Longfellow go to?
At the age of the three, young Longfellow was enrolled in a dame school. In 1813, he was shifted to the private Portland Academy. In his early days, Longfellow was very studious and fluent in Latin. His mother had a significant influence on him, as she encouraged him to read and write.
Who Was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a Harvard scholar versed in several European languages. He was heavily influenced by Romanticism and made a name as a poet and novelist with works like Hyperion, Evangeline, Poems on Slavery and The Song of Hiawatha. He was also known for his translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy .
What college did Henry Longfellow attend?
His father, a prominent lawyer, expected his son would follow in his profession. Young Henry attended Portland Academy, a private school and then Bowdoin College, in Maine. Among his fellow students was the writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Longfellow was an excellent student, showing proficiency in foreign languages.
What was the subject of Longfellow's poems?
He wrote about a multitude of subjects: slavery in Poems on Slavery, literature of Europe in an anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe, and American Indians in The Song of Hiawatha. One of the early practitioners of self-marketing, Longfellow expanded his audience becoming one of the best-selling authors in the world.
What did Longfellow teach?
Longfellow was an excellent student, showing proficiency in foreign languages. Upon graduation, in 1825, he was offered a position to teach modern languages at Bowdoin, but on the condition that he first travel to Europe, at his own expense, to research the languages.
How did Longfellow die?
In March 1882, Longfellow had developed severe stomach pains caused by acute peritonitis. With the aid of opium and his friends and family who were with him, he endured the pain for several days before succumbing on March 24, 1882. At the time of his death, he was one of the most successful writers in America, with an estate worth an estimated $356,000.
Why did Longfellow write his own textbooks?
Upon returning from Europe, because the study of foreign languages was so new in America, Longfellow had to write his own textbooks. In addition to teaching, he published his first book Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, a collection of travel essays on his European experience.
What was Longfellow's most famous work?
Longfellow would produce some of his best work such as Voices of the Night , a collection of poems including Hymn to the Night and A Psalm of Life, which gained him immediate popularity. Other publications followed such as Ballads and Other Poems, containing “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and the “Village Blacksmith.”.
Who was Henry Longfellow's wife?
On this day in 1835, 28-year-old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was devastated by the death of his beloved young wife, Mary. The couple had been traveling in Europe as the poet prepared to begin teaching literature at Harvard. The distraught Longfellow gave vent to his grief, resolving to dedicate himself to a life of "goodness and purity like hers." He vowed to abandon "literary ambition . . . this destroyer of peace and quietude and the soul's self-possession," but by the time he returned to Cambridge in 1836, he had begun writing again and eventually remarried. Over the next four decades, he would become the most popular American poet who ever lived. Contemporary poet Dana Gioia calls him the "one poet average, non-bookish Americans still know by heart."
Where did Longfellow live?
From 1826 to 1829, he lived and studied in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Returning to the U.S. in 1829, he spent the next six years as professor and librarian at Bowdoin. He turned out six textbooks, as well as publishing essays modeled on Irving's Sketchbook. But his work — even after he married the beautiful and cultivated Mary Potter of Portland in 1831 — did not ease his yearning to escape from life in a small college town. His chance came in 1835, when Harvard invited him to join its faculty, once again on the condition that he take a year abroad to prepare. His joy at this good fortune soon turned to grief, when his beloved Mary died six months into their European stay.
What happened to Longfellow?
He devoted the last years of his life to his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, a work that is still in print. He also entertained an adoring public who considered him America's greatest poet. When the "spreading chestnut tree" that he had written about in "The Village Blacksmith" died, the children of Cambridge donated their pennies so that the Brattle Street landmark could be made into a chair for the poet. Longfellow lived to see his birthday celebrated as a school holiday. He died in 1882.
Why did the children of Cambridge donate their pennies to the village blacksmith?
When the "spreading chestnut tree" that he had written about in "The Village Blacksmith" died, the children of Cambridge donated their pennies so that the Brattle Street landmark could be made into a chair for the poet.
Why was Longfellow so popular?
But the subjects he chose resonated with his countrymen. Rather than Greek gods or medieval knights, he wrote about the natural beauty, indigenous peoples, and unpolished individuals found in his native land. He popularized Native American folklore and composed powerful poems against slavery. Along with other writers and artists, he helped create a distinctly American culture.
Where was George Washington's home?
Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge was the poet's home from 1837 to 1882; it was also General George Washington's headquarters from July 1775 to April 1776.
What did Longfellow do at Bowdoin?
Back at Bowdoin in his new role, Longfellow felt stultified in a college atmosphere so different from what he had experienced at Göttingen and stifled by the provincial atmosphere of Brunswick. He also found himself overburdened with instructional tasks—introducing 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. Most of his publications for the next few years involved textbooks for students of Spanish, French, and Italian. Aspiring to scholarly recognition beyond Brunswick, Longfellow also regularly wrote essays on French, Spanish, and Italian languages and literatures for the North American Review between 1831 and 1833. Aside from two Phi Beta Kappa poems—the first at Bowdoin in 1832 and the other the next year at Harvard—the poetry he was composing consisted chiefly of translations from Romance languages that he used in his classes and articles. His continuing concerns about the place of poetry in American culture emerged, however, in his 1832 review essay on a new edition of Sir Philip Sidney ‘s “ A Defence of Poetry ,” in which Longfellow argued that “the true glory of a nation consists not in the extent of its territory, the pomp of its forests, the majesty of its rivers, the height of its mountains, and the beauty of its sky; but in the extent of its mental power,—the majesty of its intellect,—the height and depth and purity of its moral nature.”
What was the stimulus for Bowdoin College?
Bowdoin College, when Henry and Stephen Longfellow arrived for the fall 1822 term, was a small and isolated school with a traditional curriculum and conservative Congregational leadership. The stimulus Henry Longfellow found there came less from classes or the library (open one hour a day and allowing students only limited borrowing privileges) than from literary societies. Elected to the Peucinian Society, he mixed with the academically ambitious students of the college (more serious than his brother or than classmates Nathaniel Hawthorne, Franklin Pierce, and Horatio Bridge—all belonging to the Athenean Society). The book holdings of the Peucinian Society, its formal debates, and its informal Conversations about contemporary writing and American authors encouraged Henry to direct his ambition toward literature despite his practical father’s preference for a career in law or one of the other established professions. Favorable responses to poems, reviews, sketches, and essays he contributed to the Portland Advertiser, American Monthly Magazine, and United States Literary Gazette sparked hopes for editing and writing opportunities that collided against the materialistic pragmatism of New England culture. Public speaking provided other outlets for Henry’s artistic and rhetorical skills at Bowdoin: in his Junior Exhibition performance he anticipated The Song of Hiawatha (1855) by speaking as a “North American Savage” in a dialogue with an English settler, and his commencement address argued for redirection of national values in support of “Our American Authors.”
How did Longfellow help the American poets?
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. As he had honored European poets by translating their work into English, he lived to see his own poems translated into 24 languages. Longfellow laid the groundwork for other authorial careers by persuading readers of the importance of art as well as by demonstrating how literature could be turned into a paying proposition in a country known for material ambition. According to Charvat, “by shrewd, aggressive, and intelligent management of the business of writing, he raised the commercial value of verse and thereby helped other American poets to get out of the garret.”
How many storytellers did Longfellow have?
The framework Longfellow provided, however, allowed his six storytellers (the Landlord, the Student, the Spanish Jew, the Italian, the Musician, and the Theologian) to criticize each other’s presentations and draw out lessons of tolerance, forgiveness, and faith.
What encouraged Henry to direct his ambition toward literature?
The book holdings of the Peucinian Society, its formal debates, and its informal Conversations about contempor ary writing and American authors encouraged Henry to direct his ambition toward literature despite his practical father’s preference for a career in law or one of the other established professions.
Where did Longfellow study?
In Germany, Longfellow settled down to relatively disciplined study in preparation for his Bowdoin professorship, though his readings there focused more on Spanish literature than German. Returning to Maine in summer 1829, Longfellow as a young professor soon found himself immersed in the unpoetic routines of pedagogy.
Where was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow born?
Born on February 27, 1807, in Portland (while Maine was still a part of Massachusetts), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow grew up in the thriving coastal city he remembered in “ My Lost Youth ” (1856) for its wharves and woodlands, the ships and sailors from distant lands who sparked his boyish imagination, and the historical associations of its old fort and an 1813 offshore naval battle between American and British brigs. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was an attorney and a Harvard graduate active in public affairs. His mother, Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow, was the daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who had served in the American Revolution. She named this second son among her eight children for her brother, Henry Wadsworth, who had died in Tripoli harbor in 1804. The family occupied the first brick house in Portland, built by the general and still maintained as a literary shrine to its most famous occupant. Henry began his schooling at age three, when he and his older brother, Stephen, enrolled in the first of several private schools in which they prepared for entrance to Bowdoin College. Aside from a leg injury that nearly resulted in amputation when he was eight, Henry apparently enjoyed his school friendships and outdoor recreation both in Portland and at his Grandfather Wadsworth’s new home in Hiram, Maine. His father’s book collection provided literary models of a neoclassical sort, and family storytelling acquainted him with New England lore dating to pilgrim days. The boy’s first publication, appearing in the November 17, 1820 Portland Gazette and signed simply “Henry,” drew on local history for a melancholy four-quatrain salute to warriors who fell at “The Battle of Lovell’s Pond.” A family friend’s dismissal of the piece as both “stiff” and derivative may have discouraged Henry’s ambition for the time. Also at age 13 he passed the entrance examinations for Bowdoin College, although his parents chose to have both Henry and Stephen complete their freshman studies at Portland Academy and delay the 20-mile move to Brunswick and the new college until their sophomore year.
Where was Longfellow born?
Longfellow was born to Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow in Portland, Maine, then a district of Massachusetts, and he grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. His father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress. He was named after his mother's brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who died only three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli. Young Longfellow was the second of eight children; his siblings were Stephen (1805), Elizabeth (1808), Anne (1810), Alexander (1814), Mary (1816), Ellen (1818), and Samuel (1819).
What was Henry Longfellow's first poem?
His mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. He printed his first poem – a patriotic and historical four stanza poem called "The Battle of Lovell's Pond" – in the Portland Gazette on November 17, 1820. He stayed at the Portland Academy until the age of fourteen. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Peleg's farm in the western Maine town of Hiram.
