Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the Fireside Poets from New England.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then still part of Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College and became a professor at Bowdoin and later at Harvard College after spending time in Europe. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). He retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, and he lived the remainder of his life in the Revolutionary War headquarters of George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first wife Mary Potter died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages. He died in 1882.

Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized by some, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.

Life and work
Early life and education
Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 to Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow in Portland, Maine,[1] then a district of Massachusetts.[2] He grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth–Longfellow House. His father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather was Peleg Wadsworth, a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress.[3] His mother was descended from Richard Warren, a passenger on the Mayflower.[4] He was named after his mother's brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who had died three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli.[5] He was the second of eight children.[6]

Longfellow was descended from English colonists who settled in New England in the early 1600s.[7] They included Mayflower Pilgrims Richard Warren, William Brewster, and John and Priscilla Alden, as well as Elizabeth Pabodie, the first child born in Plymouth Colony.[8]

Longfellow attended a dame school at the age of three and was enrolled by age six at the private Portland Academy. In his years there, he earned a reputation as being very studious and became fluent in Latin.[9] His mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote.[10] He published his first poem in the Portland Gazette on November 17, 1820, a patriotic and historical four-stanza poem called "The Battle of Lovell's Pond".[11] He studied at the Portland Academy until age 14. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Peleg's farm in Hiram, Maine.

In the fall of 1822, 15 year-old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, along with his brother Stephen.[9] His grandfather was a founder of the college[12] and his father was a trustee.[9] There Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne who became his lifelong friend.[13] He boarded with a clergyman for a time before rooming on the third floor[14] in 1823 of what is now known as Winthrop Hall.[15] He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings.[16] In his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations:

I will not disguise it in the least…. the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it, and every earthly thought centres in it…. I am almost confident in believing, that if I can ever rise in the world it must be by the exercise of my talents in the wide field of literature.[17]

He pursued his literary goals by submitting poetry and prose to various newspapers and magazines, partly due to encouragement from Professor Thomas Cogswell Upham.[18] He published nearly 40 minor poems between January 1824 and his graduation in 1825.[19] About 24 of them were published in the short-lived Boston periodical The United States Literary Gazette.[16] When Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin, he was ranked fourth in the class and had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[20] He gave the student commencement address.[18]

European tours and professorships
After graduating in 1825, Longfellow was offered a job as professor of modern languages at his alma mater. An apocryphal story claims that college trustee Benjamin Orr had been impressed by Longfellow's translation of Horace and hired him under the condition that he travel to Europe to study French, Spanish, and Italian.[21]

Whatever the catalyst, Longfellow began his tour of Europe in May 1826 aboard the ship Cadmus.[22] His time abroad lasted three years and cost his father $2,604.24.[23] He traveled to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, back to France, then to England before returning to the United States in mid-August 1829.[24] While overseas, he learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, mostly without formal instruction.[25] In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the author's work ethic.[26] Irving encouraged the young Longfellow to pursue writing.[27] While in Spain, Longfellow was saddened to learn that his favorite sister Elizabeth had died of tuberculosis at the age of 20 that May.[28]

On August 27, 1829, he wrote to the president of Bowdoin that he was turning down the professorship because he considered the $600 salary "disproportionate to the duties required". The trustees raised his salary to $800 with an additional $100 to serve as the college's librarian, a post which required one hour of work per day.[29] During his years teaching at the college, he translated textbooks from French, Italian, and Spanish;[30] his first published book was a translation of the poetry of medieval Spanish poet Jorge Manrique in 1833.[31]

He published the travel book Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea in serial form before a book edition was released in 1835.[30] Shortly after the book's publication, Longfellow attempted to join the literary circle in New York and asked George Pope Morris for an editorial role at one of Morris's publications. He considered moving to New York after New York University proposed offering him a newly created professorship of modern languages, though there would be no salary. The professorship was not created and Longfellow agreed to continue teaching at Bowdoin.[32] It may have been joyless work. He wrote, "I hate the sight of pen, ink, and paper ... I do not believe that I was born for such a lot. I have aimed higher than this".[33]

On September 14, 1831, Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter, a childhood friend from Portland.[34] The couple settled in Brunswick, though the two were not happy there.[35] Longfellow published several nonfiction and fiction prose pieces in 1833 inspired by Irving, including "The Indian Summer" and "The Bald Eagle".[36]

In December 1834, Longfellow received a letter from Josiah Quincy III, president of Harvard College, offering him the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages with the stipulation that he spend a year or so abroad.[37] There, he further studied German as well as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic.[38] In October 1835, his wife Mary had a miscarriage during the trip, about six months into her pregnancy.[39] She did not recover and died after several weeks of illness at the age of 22 on November 29, 1835. Longfellow had her body embalmed immediately and placed in a lead coffin inside an oak coffin, which was shipped to Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston.[40] He was deeply saddened by her death and wrote: "One thought occupies me night and day ... She is dead – She is dead! All day I am weary and sad".[41] Three years later, he was inspired to write the poem "Footsteps of Angels" about her. Several years later, he wrote the poem "Mezzo Cammin," which expressed his personal struggles in his middle years.[42]

Longfellow returned to the United States in 1836 and took up the professorship at Harvard. He was required to live in Cambridge to be close to the campus and, therefore, rented rooms at the Craigie House in the spring of 1837.[43] The home was built in 1759 and was the headquarters of George Washington during the Siege of Boston beginning in July 1775.[44] Elizabeth Craigie owned the home, the widow of Andrew Craigie, and she rented rooms on the second floor. Previous boarders included Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, and Joseph Emerson Worcester.[45] It is preserved today as the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.

Longfellow began publishing his poetry in 1839, including the collection Voices of the Night, his debut book of poetry.[46] The bulk of Voices of the Night was translations, though he also included nine original poems and seven poems that he had written as a teenager.[47] Ballads and Other Poems was published in 1841[48] and included "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus", which were instantly popular.[49] He became part of the local social scene, creating a group of friends who called themselves the Five of Clubs. Members included Cornelius Conway Felton, George Stillman Hillard, and Charles Sumner; Sumner became Longfellow's closest friend over the next 30 years.[50] Longfellow was well liked as a professor, though he disliked being "constantly a playmate for boys" rather than "stretching out and grappling with men's minds."[51]