how many languages did henry wadsworth longfellow speak

(Even The Birds of Killingworth was adapted from an English story.) Longfellows translation, still respected for its linguistic appreciation and literary merit, appeared in an 1865-67 three-volume edition, although he completed the translation in spring 1864. 4.33 avg rating 57 ratings. But when Henry was a senior at Bowdoin College at 19, the college established a chair of modern languages. [101] Many of the metaphors that he used in his poetry came from legends, mythology, and literature. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). [61] They were soon married; Nathan Appleton bought the Craigie House as a wedding present, and Longfellow lived there for the rest of his life. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 . 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. [99] Much of his poetry imparts cultural and moral values, particularly focused on life being more than material pursuits. "There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882) was America's most beloved nineteenth-century poet, . [2] He grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. [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. My . [72] Her dress suddenly caught fire, but it is unclear exactly how;[73] burning wax or a lighted candle may have fallen onto it. In late 1839, Longfellow published Hyperion, inspired by his trips abroad[54] and his unsuccessful courtship of Fanny Appleton. [82] By 1868, Longfellow's annual income was over $48,000. Henry W. Longfellow, photographed by Mathew Brady, 1859. [108], In 1874, Longfellow oversaw a 31-volume anthology called Poems of Places which collected poems representing several geographical locations, including European, Asian, and Arabian countries. The boys 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 Lovells Pond. A family friends dismissal of the piece as both stiff and derivative may have discouraged Henrys ambition for the time. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Why did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow write a Psalm of Life? I do not believe that I was born for such a lot. Fanny's father Nathan Appleton gave Craigie House to the Longfellows as a wedding gift, and it became a meeting place for literary and philosophical figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Julia Ward Howe . [15] He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings. 25K. According to Howells, Longfellows power derived from his courage in frankly trusting the personal as the universal along with his unaffectedness, the simplicity of his feelings, and the sincerity of his expression. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then still part of Massachusetts. Based on Chippewa (Ojibway) culture and traditions as represented by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and John Tanner, on John G. E. Heckewelders defense of Delaware culture, and on Longfellows acquaintance with an Ojibway chief who stayed at his house, the poem also drew on widespread literary and visual representations of the West to construct what Longfellow called his Indian Edda. Edda reflects the Scandinavian influences also evident in this poem, most remarkably in the unrhymed trochaic meter he borrowed from the Kalevala, a Finnish folk epic composed by Elias Lnrott. It's more full and complex than language we can experience it but not explain it. He considered moving to New York after New York University proposed offering him a newly created professorship of modern languages, but there would be no salary. Returning to Maine in summer 1829, Longfellow as a young professor soon found himself immersed in the unpoetic routines of pedagogy. BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. Longfellow attended a dame school at the age of three and was enrolled by age six at the private Portland Academy. Chapter 4 / Lesson 6. [30] During his years teaching at the college, he translated textbooks from French, Italian, and Spanish;[31] his first published book was a translation of the poetry of medieval Spanish poet Jorge Manrique in 1833. He graduated from Bowdoin College and became a professor there and, later, at Harvard College after studying in Europe. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. [26] In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the author's work ethic. [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. Created by. I'm gwine." She married Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet, buried at this cem.) [134], Longfellow was the most popular poet of his day. [62] His love for Fanny is evident in the following lines from his only love poem, the sonnet "The Evening Star"[63] which he wrote in October 1845: "O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus! He moved ahead to new dramatic poems, notably Judas Maccabeus in Three Books of Song (1872) and The Masque of Pandora (1875); Michael Angelo, his last major poem, appeared posthumously in 1883 in its unfinished condition. Longfellow returned to this theme three years later in his last major prose composition, Kavanagh, A Tale (1849). [16] In his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations: I will not disguise it in the leastthe 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 itI 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. [44] The home was built in 1759 and was the headquarters of George Washington during the Siege of Boston beginning in July 1775. This period was also one of experimentation in dramatic writing, although publication of The Spanish Student was delayed until 1843. Kramos and Other Poems appeared in 1878 with a title poem that linked Longfellows boyhood interest in Portland pottery with his later travels and readings to present a particularly effective statement of his poetics. Haiku. 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. Their second-youngest daughter was Edith who married Richard Henry Dana III, son of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. who wrote Two Years Before the Mast. [89] He had been suffering from peritonitis. For advice, he gathered weekly evening sessions of his Dante Club of writer-scholarsamong them James Russell Lowell, who had succeeded Longfellow as Smith Professor; Charles Eliot Norton, who eventually published his own prose translation of Dantes masterpiece; and William Dean Howells. 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. [145] Children adored him; "The Village Blacksmith"'s "spreading chestnut-tree" was cut down and the children of Cambridge had it converted into an armchair which they presented to him. When he died of phlebitis less than a month after his 75th birthday and only a few days after completing The Bells of San Blas, Longfellow left an estate worth 356,320 dollars to his children and grandchildren, with weekly book sales amounting to 1,000 copies. The Warning, written last but drawn in part from his Harvard Phi Beta Kappa poem, concluded this slim volume with the image of a poor, blind Samson in this land capable someday of shaking the pillars of this Commonweal, / Till the vast Temple of our liberties / A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. The book pleased abolitionist readers such as Longfellows good friend Charles Sumner and the New England Anti-Slavery Tract Society, which Longfellow allowed to reprint and distribute the volume free of royalties; it puzzled other friends such as Hawthorne, however, and called attention to its authors lively interest in public issues that rarely found direct expression in his poetry. [141] As James Russell Lowell said, Longfellow had an "absolute sweetness, simplicity, and modesty". 1807-1882. Much of the charm of the poem lies in its evocation of place, from the pastoral Grand-Pr, where Benedict Bellefontaine, Evangelines father, dwelt on his goodly acres, through the bayous of Louisiana, where the Acadian blacksmith Basil Lajeunesse, Gabriels father, achieves new prosperity as a rancher, through the forests of French mission territory at the base of the Ozarks, where Evangeline ventures in seeking Gabriel, all the way to Philadelphia, where the aged heroine finds her lover dying in a hospital for plague victims and where they are buried together. Many of Longfellows efforts now took dramatic form, although none proved suitable for staging. Request a transcript here. 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. Hyatt Waggoner observed the irony of Longfellows having been most appreciated in his own time for A Psalm of Life, noting that though it intends to mean that life is worth living after all, what it effectively does mean is that life must be worth living but the poet cant think why. In that university town he met William Cullen Bryant, who had been a major influence on his early poetry and an inspiring model of American authorship. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was an attorney and a Harvard graduate active in public affairs. It is thine. Now he plunged into work, translating at the rate of a canto a day. Learn. [120] John Greenleaf Whittier suggested that it was this massive correspondence which led to Longfellow's death: "My friend Longfellow was driven to death by these incessant demands". [127] Poet Walt Whitman considered him an imitator of European forms, but he praised his ability to reach a popular audience as "the expressor of common themesof the little songs of the masses". After a brief period of boarding on Professors Row in Cambridge, Longfellow found lodging in the Craigie mansion on Brattle Street, occupying the room that had once been George Washingtons headquarters. Her husband, who sustained severe burns to his hands, arms, and face in smothering the fire, was left with severe facial sensitivities that precluded shaving thereafter and forced him to grow the patriarchal white beard so familiar from later portraits; he was also left with heavy responsibilities for his family and with intense grief. Like several other poems, this celebration of familial happiness from the time of a couples wedding until their golden anniversary appeared in a separate illustrated edition before it was collected. This collection was Longfellows version of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales or Giovanni Boccaccios Decameron. Last major prose composition, Kavanagh, a Tale ( 1849 ) he been! He had been suffering from peritonitis i & # x27 ; s more and... Publication of the Night ( 1839 ) and Ballads and Other Poems ( 1841.. Henry was a senior at Bowdoin College at 19, the College a... Dramatic writing, although publication of the metaphors that he used in his poetry came from legends mythology! Longfellows version of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales or Giovanni Boccaccios Decameron discouraged Henrys ambition for time! 82 ] by 1868, Longfellow published Hyperion, inspired by his abroad... 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