Read complete books and articles on: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth - 1807–82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body of romantic American legends. Descended from an established New England family, after college he spent the next three years in Europe, preparing himself for a professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin, where he taught from 1829 to 1835. After the death of his young wife in 1835, Longfellow traveled again to Europe, where he met Frances Appleton, who was to become his second wife after a long courtship. She was the model for the heroine of his prose romance, Hyperion (1839). From 1836 to 1854, Longfellow was professor of modern languages at Harvard, and during these years he became one of an intellectual triumvirate that included Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell. Although a sympathetic and ethical person, Longfellow was uninvolved in the compelling religious and social issues of his time; he did, however, display interest in the abolitionist cause. He achieved great fame with long narrative poems such as Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), which included "Paul Revere's Ride." In all of these works he used unusual, "antique" rhythms to weave myths of the American past. His best-known shorter poems include "The Village Blacksmith," "Excelsior," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "A Psalm of Life," and "A Cross of Snow." Although he was highly praised and successful in his lifetime, Longfellow's literary reputation has declined in the 20th cent. His unorthodox meters, while contributing to the unique effects of his poems, have been much parodied, and many critics have viewed harshly his simple, sentimental, often moralizing verse. Longfellow made a poetic translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1867), for which he wrote a sequence of six outstanding sonnets. After his death, he was the first American whose bust was placed in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.

See his letters (ed. by A. Hilen, 4 vol., 1967–72); biographies by his brother, Samuel (3 vol., 1891; repr. 1969), T. W. Higginson (1902, repr. 1973), and N. Arvin (1963); studies by C. B. Williams (1964) and E. C. Wagenknecht (1986).

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15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

A Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Companion » Read Now
by Robert L. Gale. 313 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Best remembered today as the author of The Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow continues to be one of the most popular poets in American literary history. This book is a guide to his life and writings. A brief introductory essay overviews Longfellow's life and accomplishments. A chronology then summarizes...
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Best remembered today as the author of The Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow continues to be one of the most popular poets in American literary history. This book is a guide to his life and writings. A brief introductory essay overviews Longfellow's life and accomplishments. A chronology then summarizes the chief events in his career. Hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries follow, discussing individual poems, his other writings, his family members and professional associates, and topics related to his life and literary achievements. Entries list works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.
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2.

The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow » Read Now
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 677 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
3.

Longfellow: His Life and Work » Read Now
by Newton Arvin. 338 pgs.

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...the following sources: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: His Life, His Works...Austin 1883 ; Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , by Samuel Longfellow...Final Memorials of Henry...
4.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1902) » Read Now
by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 336 pgs.

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...Great American Authors HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW RIVERSIDE POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW BY THOMAS WENTWORTH...APPENDIX 297 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW...
5.

American Classics Reconsidered: A Christian Appraisal ("Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882: Poet of the Feeling Heart" begins on p. 146) » Read Now
by Harold C. Gardiner. 310 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...New England JOSEPH SCHWARTZ 121 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 1807-1882 Poet of the Feeling Heart JOSEPH...Heart Divine JEREMIAH K. DURICK 176 HENRY DAVID THOREAU 1817-1862...
6.

Return to the Fountains: Some Classical Sources of American Criticism ("Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" begins on p. 79) » Read Now
by John Paul Pritchard. 276 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library

...publishers of Odell Shepard Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; D. Appleton- Century...A Victorian American: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; Harcourt, Brace and...Lowells Complete...
7.

Literary Pioneers: Early American Explorers of European Culture ("Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" begins on p. 159) » Read Now
by Orie William Long. 270 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Cogswell, George Bancroft, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Motley, and others...Joseph G. Thorp and to Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, who generously placed...108 V...
8.

American Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (Chap. IV "Longfellow") » Read Now
by Clarence Gohdes. 196 pgs.

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9.

Poets of America (1892) (Chap. VI "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow") » Read Now
by Edmund Clarence Stedman. 516 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 180...1837-67. Henry Howard Brownell...Johnson, S. Longfellow, Abraham Coles...1822-72. George Henry Boker: 1823...of those of Longfellow and...
10.

Young Longfellow (1807-1843) » Read Now
by Lawrance Thompson. 450 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...CANADA, LIMITED TORONTO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW , aet . 33 From the...Miss Anne Thorp and Dr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, have given generous...APPLETON 284 HENRY...
11.

The Literature of the American People: An Historical and Critical Survey (Discussion of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow begins on p. 323) » Read Now
by Arthur Hobson Quinn. 1172 pgs.

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...to the courtesy of the late Mr. Henry W. Longfellow Dana. Mr. A. T. Gardner of the...15 Samuel E. Morison and Henry S. Commager, The Growth of the...colonies. Among them...
12.

Sentimental Collaborations: Mourning and Middle-Class Identity in Nineteenth-Century America (Part III "The Competition of Sentimental Nationalisms: Lydia Sigourney and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow") » Read Now
by Mary Louise Kete. 284 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

During the 1992 Democratic Convention and again while delivering Harvard University's commencement address two years later, Vice President Al Gore shared with his audience a story that showed the effect of sentiment in his life. In telling how an accident involving his son had provided him with a...
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During the 1992 Democratic Convention and again while delivering Harvard University's commencement address two years later, Vice President Al Gore shared with his audience a story that showed the effect of sentiment in his life. In telling how an accident involving his son had provided him with a revelation concerning the compassion of others, Gore effectively reconstructed himself as a typical, middle-class American for whom sympathy can lead to salvation. This contemporary reiteration of mid-nineteenth-century American sentimental discourse proves to be a fruitful point of departure for Mary Louise Kete's argument that sentimentality has been an important and recurring form of cultural narrative that has helped to shape middle-class American life.
Many scholars have written about the sentimental novel as a primarily female genre and have stressed its negative ideological aspects. Kete finds that in fact many men -- from writers to politicians -- participated in nineteenth-century sentimental culture. Importantly, she also recovers the utopian dimension of the phenomenon, arguing that literary sentimentality, specifically in the form of poetry, is the written trace of a broad cultural discourse that Kete calls "sentimental collaboration" -- an exchange of sympathy that establishes common cultural or intellectual ground. Kete reads the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Lydia Huntley Sigourney with an eye toward the deployment of sentimentality for the creation ot Americanism, as well as for political and abolitionist ends. Finally, she locates the origins of sentimental collaboration in the activities of ordinary people whoparticipated in mourning rituals -- writing poetry, condolence letters, or epitaphs -- to ease their, personal grief.
Sentimental Collaborations significantly advances prevailing scholarship on Romanticism, antebellum cul
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13.

Professor Longfellow of Harvard » Read Now
by Carl L. Johnson. 116 pgs.

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...Longfellow, in the Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , published by Houghton...Higginson , in writing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for the "American Men...Longfellow, ed....
14.

Tales of a Wayside Inn » Read Now
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 256 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 1863. Entered...according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863 by HENRY WADSWORTH...
15.

Divine Tragedy » Read Now
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 154 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...THE DIVINE TRAGEDY BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW BOSTON JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 1871...to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, in the...