Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Fellow’s Long Worth
How does one describe a poet when he has already described himself with his own words? Although Henry Wadsworth Longfellow isn’t popular, he is such a poet. As described by Arnold Bennett, Longfellow is "the chief minor poet of the English language." Among a harsh lineup of critics, however, they claimed he fell short of literary. This is quite the contrary.
Longfellow attended Bowdoin college, near Portland, Maine where he was born and raised. The college offered him the newly formed position as chair of modern languages. "Two things are striking about this event: the informality of the academic approach to language studies and the obvious natural gift that Longfellow possessed" (Fuller 3). Traveling throughout Europe before settling into his new job (as well as during numerous trips after), Longfellow practically learned the languages by osmosis. He could speak splendid amounts of French, Spanish, Italian, German and some Scandinavian.
After leaving Bowdoin, he later taught at Harvard University. At this time, his pen began to constantly scratch prose and poetry. After almost twenty years as a professor, Longfellow retired and devoted himself to his craft of poetry.
After tasting random stanzas and meters of Longfellow’s work, it is easy to identify his tone: uplifting, positive and somewhat glowing. Along with his shorter pieces that evoke positive feelings, Longfellow also tells stories with his longer poetry. He used lyrical verses to describe, weave and introduce new characters or feelings. From the poem "The Skeleton in Armor" to "Paul Revere’s Ride," Longfellow opened up worlds with his words, whether as real as the Revolutionary War, or as mystic as Nordic my...
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...t, overall, passion was underneath his skin. As he wrote in "Michael Angelo: A Fragment," "The fever to accomplish some great work that will not let us sleep. I must go on until I die."
It is unfair that Longfellow isn’t praised more as an American poet, especially with a backpack heavy with accomplishments. His hike through the literary world was rugged, but his perseverance left readers with kind, unassuming meter and lyric.
Works Cited
Fuller, Edmund. Introduction. Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1967. 1-13.
Untermeyer, Louis. Introduction. The American Poets: Longfellow. By Henry Wadwsworth Longfellow. New York: The Heritage Press, 1943. ix-xv.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: His Poetry and Prose. New York: The Ungar Publishing Company, 1986.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “A Psalm of Life.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Seventh Shorter Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2008. 645-6. Print.
MacLeish, Archibald. “Selected Poetry of Ogden Nash: 650 rhymes, verses, lyrics, and poems.” New York: Black Dog & Leventhal: xix-xii. 1995. Print. 15 Apr. 2014.
Waggoner, Hyatt H. "A Writer of Poems: The Life and Work of Robert Frost," The Times Literary Supplement. April 16, 1971, 433-34.
In Yamashita’s I Hotel, she attempts to bring alive the collectivist spirit of the 1960s and 70s as a way to inspire, change and action rather than complacency. Through her text, Yamashita seeks to refresh ethnic American politics by looking back to the 60s and 70s when inter-ethnic movements first developed. Many activists are depicted as individuals who are willing to experiment and try different methods in order to bolster their perspective movement. Told through a series of historical anecdotes, Yamashita develops the deeper idea behind International Hotel. She preaches the idea to be radical, collective, and collaborative to successfully enact change. Yamashita portrays activists of the time as inter ethnic groups of people who all want equality and justice for all and are willing to work together in order to achieve it. Despite difference of heritage, most of the activists have si...
Rampersad, Arnold. "Introduction.(THREE POEMS BY LANGSTON HUGHES)(Critical Essay)." Poetry 4 (2009): 327. Academic OneFile. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
“Leaders have always been generalists. Tomorrow’s leaders will, very likely, have begun life as specialists, but to mature as leaders they must sooner or later climb out of the trenches of specialization and rise above the boundaries that separate the various segments of society.” (Gardner, 1990, pg. 159).
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”. Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2008. 196. Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Robert Browning’s Poetry.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. New York, New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2005. print.
Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Helen Vendler. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
Chain of Command – This establishes the level of authority from the bottom to the top within the organization and the level of authority each managerial position will hold. Additionally, the chain of command will outline the reporting process.
However, once he hit his second stanza was written the message of encouragement allowed itself to flourish, and gave way to a splendid involving poem. Throughout the poem the words dark, dreary, wind, weary and day were used repeatedly, this is an obvious choice of words to lend to the ear of the reader to give them a thought of his own visions of melancholy existence. But also at the end you can tell where his thoughts began to liven and his small but reoccurring voice of reason and hope chimed in to relieve the poem of encapsulating despair, the mention of past memories in the second stanza mimics that of the third line in the first stanza that talks of clinging vines, and is an accompaniment to the already established emotion. Longfellow’s The Rainy Day compared to other authors or even Longfellow’s own works; may be a shorter, less complicated poem, but what it has is a simple, pure and I dare to say it; raw feeling of time, place and
Considering a philosophical approach, this poem has a positive effect on humans to live a better life. It shows how life is serious yet fragile thing and we only get one shot, one wrong move and it's all gone. In life each day is a new day, and each day can be made better than your last. Knowing who you are and where you want to go in life while making your own path for that to happen instead of being 'dumb cattle' is brave. Living your life to the fullest but not leaving anything behind is like not living at all. These three things are Longfellow's key to living and the meaning of life. At the end of it all life is what you make it, live each day as fully as possible because you never know when it could all
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