Longfellow was the most popular poet of his day.[136] As a friend once wrote, "no other poet was so fully recognized in his lifetime".[137] Many of his works helped shape the American character and its legacy, particularly with the poem "Paul Revere's Ride".[120] He was such an admired figure in the United States during his life that his 70th birthday in 1877 took on the air of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry. Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into the 20th century, as academics focused attention on other poets such as Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost.[138] In the 20th century, literary scholar Kermit Vanderbilt noted: "Increasingly rare is the scholar who braves ridicule to justify the art of Longfellow's popular rhymings."[139] Twentieth-century poet Lewis Putnam Turco concluded that "Longfellow was minor and derivative in every way throughout his career ... nothing more than a hack imitator of the English Romantics."[140] Author Nicholas A. Basbanes, in his 2020 book Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, defended Longfellow as "the victim of an orchestrated dismissal that may well be unique in American literary history".[141]
Over the years, Longfellow's personality has become part of his reputation. He has been presented as a gentle, placid, poetic soul, an image perpetuated by his brother Samuel Longfellow who wrote an early biography which specifically emphasized these points.[142] As James Russell Lowell said, Longfellow had an "absolute sweetness, simplicity, and modesty".[127] At Longfellow's funeral, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "a sweet and beautiful soul".[143] In reality, his life was much more difficult than was assumed. He suffered from neuralgia, which caused him constant pain, and he had poor eyesight. He wrote to friend Charles Sumner: "I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart".[144] He had difficulty coping with the death of his second wife.[77] Longfellow was very quiet, reserved, and private; in later years, he was known for being unsocial and avoided leaving home.[145]
Longfellow had become one of the first American celebrities and was popular in Europe. It was reported that 10,000 copies of The Courtship of Miles Standish sold in London in a single day.[146] 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.[147] In 1884, Longfellow became the first non-British writer for whom a commemorative bust was placed in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey in London; he remains the only American poet represented with a bust.[148] A public monument by Franklin Simmons was erected in Longfellow's birthplace of Portland, Maine, in September 1888. In 1909, a statue of Longfellow was unveiled in Washington, DC, sculpted by William Couper. He was honored in March 2007 when the United States Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating him.
As a memorial to their father, Longfellow's children donated land across Brattle Street and facing the family home to the City of Cambridge, which became Longfellow Park. A monument featuring a bas relief of Miles Standish, Sadalphon, the Village Blacksmith, the Spanish Student, Evangeline, and Hiawatha, characters from Longfellow's works, was dedicated in October 1914.[149]
