Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Literature / Writers-Poets Datebook: February 27.

 

 

 

 

 

Brief biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and one of the fireside poets from New England. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and Evangeline".    

 

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, (b. February 27, 1807, Portland, Maine, USA - d. March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA), wrote some of the famous poems in American literature.He was the first American to be honoured with a bust in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Early Years

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow traced his family back to the Plymouth Pilgrims.He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, where Nathaniel Hawthorne, famous writer of novels and short stories, had been his classmate.

Career

Longfellow spent his early career teaching foreign languages, first at Bowdoin College and later at Harvard University. He then concentrated on poetry.

Longfellow was one of the few American poets who was so popular in his day that he could support himself by writing. His private life was filled with sadness. His first wife died shortly after they were married, and his second wife was killed in a fire. It is no surprise that this sadness is reflected in many of his poems.

The famous poet  

Aged 32, Longfellow published his first book of verse, Voices of the Night. The book brought him wide public recognition. He published Ballads two years later. Ballads contains some of his famous poems, including 'The Village Blacksmith'.

Famous for his romantic storytelling, he became known for his long poems that use simple ideas telling stories based on American history and mythology. These include the well-known The Song of Hiawatha, a tale from Native-American legends; Evangeline, the story of the French exiles of France's colonies in North America; and The Courtship of Miles Standish, a romance set during the Pilgrim Father's early days.

Works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Voices of the Night, 1839

Ballads, 1841

Evangeline, 1847

The Seaside and the Fireside, 1849

The Song of Hiawatha, 1855

The Courtship of Miles Standish, 1858

Tales of a Wayside Inn (including 'Paul Revere's Ride'), 1863

Ultima Thule, 1880

 

Photo Credit:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868.

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, by Ian Ousby (1993)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. en.wikipedia.org 

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

 

(c) February 2009. Updated February 27, 2024. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.