Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems Henry Longfellow

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 through their daughter 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] the equivalent of over $67,000 today.[24] He traveled to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, back to France, then to England before returning to the United States in mid-August 1829.[25] While overseas, he learned French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, mostly without formal instruction.[26] In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the author's work ethic.[27] Irving encouraged the young Longfellow to pursue writing.[28] While in Spain, Longfellow was saddened to learn that his favorite sister Elizabeth had died of tuberculosis at the age of 20 that May.[29]

On August 27, 1829, he wrote to the president of Bowdoin that he was turning down the professorship because he considered the $600 (~$17,168 in 2023) 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.[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.[32]

He published the travel book Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea in serial form before a book edition was released in 1835.[31] 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, but there would be no salary. The professorship was not created and Longfellow agreed to continue teaching at Bowdoin.[33] 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".[34]

On September 14, 1831, Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter, a childhood friend from Portland.[35] The couple settled in Brunswick, but the two were not happy there.[36] Longfellow published several nonfiction and fiction prose pieces in 1833 inspired by Irving, including "The Indian Summer" and "The Bald Eagle".[37]

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.[38] There, he further studied German as well as Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic.[39] In October 1835, his wife Mary had a miscarriage during the trip, about six months into her pregnancy.[40] 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.[41] 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".[42] 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.[43]

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.[44] The home was built in 1759 and was the headquarters of George Washington during the Siege of Boston beginning in July 1775.[45] 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.[46] 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.[47] The bulk of Voices of the Night was translations, but he included nine original poems and seven poems that he had written as a teenager.[48] Ballads and Other Poems was published in 1841[49] and included "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus", which were instantly popular.[50] 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.[51] Longfellow was well liked as a professor, but he disliked being "constantly a playmate for boys" rather than "stretching out and grappling with men's minds."[52]

Courtship of Frances Appleton

Longfellow met Boston industrialist Nathan Appleton and his son Thomas Gold Appleton in the town of Thun, Switzerland. There he began courting Appleton's daughter Frances "Fanny" Appleton. The independent-minded Fanny was not interested in marriage, but Longfellow was determined.[53] In July 1839, he wrote to a friend: "Victory hangs doubtful. The lady says she will not! I say she shall! It is not pride, but the madness of passion".[54] His friend George Stillman Hillard encouraged him in the pursuit: "I delight to see you keeping up so stout a heart for the resolve to conquer is half the battle in love as well as war".[55] During the courtship, Longfellow frequently walked from Cambridge to the Appleton home in Beacon Hill in Boston by crossing the Boston Bridge. That bridge was replaced in 1906 by a new bridge which was later renamed the Longfellow Bridge.

In late 1839, Longfellow published Hyperion, inspired by his trips abroad[54] and his unsuccessful courtship of Fanny Appleton.[56] Amidst this, he fell into "periods of neurotic depression with moments of panic" and took a six-month leave of absence from Harvard University to attend a health spa in the former Marienberg Benedictine Convent at Boppard in Germany.[56] After returning, he published the play The Spanish Student in 1842, reflecting his memories from his time in Spain in the 1820s.[57]

The small collection Poems on Slavery was published in 1842 as Longfellow's first public support of abolitionism. However, as Longfellow himself wrote, the poems were "so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast".[58] A critic for The Dial agreed, calling it "the thinnest of all Mr. Longfellow's thin books; spirited and polished like its forerunners; but the topic would warrant a deeper tone".[59] The New England Anti-Slavery Society, however, was satisfied enough with the collection to reprint it for further distribution.[60]

On May 10, 1843, Longfellow received a letter from Fanny Appleton agreeing to marry him. He was too restless to take a carriage and walked 90 minutes to meet her at her house.[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.[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! My morning and my evening star of love!" He once attended a ball without her and noted, "The lights seemed dimmer, the music sadder, the flowers fewer, and the women less fair."[64]

He and Fanny had six children: Charles Appleton (1844–1893), Ernest Wadsworth (1845–1921), Fanny (1847–1848), Alice Mary (1850–1928), Edith (1853–1915), and Anne Allegra (1855–1934). 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.[65] Their daughter Fanny was born on April 7, 1847, and Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep administered ether to the mother as the first obstetric anesthetic in the United States.[66] Longfellow published his epic poem Evangeline for the first time a few months later on November 1, 1847.[66] His literary income was increasing considerably; in 1840, he had made $219 from his work, but 1850 brought him $1,900.[67]

On June 14, 1853, Longfellow held a farewell dinner party at his Cambridge home for his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was preparing to move overseas.[68] In 1854, he retired from Harvard,[69] devoting himself entirely to writing. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from Harvard in 1859.[70]

Death of Frances

Frances was putting locks of her children's hair into an envelope on July 9, 1861[71] and attempting to seal it with hot sealing wax while Longfellow took a nap.[72] Her dress suddenly caught fire, but it is unclear exactly how;[73] burning wax or a lighted candle may have fallen onto it.[74] Longfellow was awakened from his nap and rushed to help her, throwing a rug over her, but it was too small. He stifled the flames with his body, but she was badly burned.[73] Longfellow's youngest daughter Annie explained the story differently some 50 years later, claiming that there had been no candle or wax but that the fire had started from a self-lighting match that had fallen on the floor.[65] Both accounts state that Frances was taken to her room to recover, and a doctor was called. She was in and out of consciousness throughout the night and was administered ether. She died shortly after 10 the next morning, July 10, after requesting a cup of coffee.[75] Longfellow had burned himself while trying to save her, badly enough that he was unable to attend her funeral.[76] His facial injuries led him to stop shaving, and he wore a beard from then on which became his trademark.[75]

Longfellow was devastated by Frances's death and never fully recovered; he occasionally resorted to laudanum and ether to deal with his grief.[77] He worried that he would go insane, begging "not to be sent to an asylum" and noting that he was "inwardly bleeding to death".[78] He expressed his grief in the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" (1879) which he wrote 18 years later to commemorate her death:[43]

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast

These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.[78]

Later life and death

Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. To aid him in perfecting the translation and reviewing proofs, he invited friends to meetings every Wednesday starting in 1864.[79] The "Dante Club", as it was called, regularly included William Dean Howells, James Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton, as well as other occasional guests.[80] The full three-volume translation was published in the spring of 1867, but Longfellow continued to revise it.[81] It went through four printings in its first year.[82] By 1868, Longfellow's annual income was over $48,000 (~$915,594 in 2023).[83] In 1874, Samuel Ward helped him sell the poem "The Hanging of the Crane" to The New York Ledger for $3,000 (~$80,788 in 2023). At that time, this was the highest price ever paid for a poem.[84]

Longfellow supported abolitionism and especially hoped for reconciliation between the northern and southern states after the American Civil War. His son Charles was injured during the war,[85] and he wrote the poem "Christmas Bells", later the basis of the carol I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. He wrote in his journal in 1878: "I have only one desire; and that is for harmony, and a frank and honest understanding between North and South".[86] Longfellow accepted an offer from Joshua Chamberlain to speak at his fiftieth reunion at Bowdoin College, despite his aversion to public speaking. He read the poem "Morituri Salutamus" so quietly that few could hear him.[87] The next year, he declined an offer to be nominated for the Board of Overseers at Harvard "for reasons very conclusive to my own mind".[88]

On August 22, 1879, a female admirer traveled to Longfellow's house in Cambridge and, unaware to whom she was speaking, asked him: "Is this the house where Longfellow was born?" He told her that it was not. The visitor then asked if he had died here. "Not yet", he replied.[89] In March 1882, Longfellow went to bed with severe stomach pain. He endured the pain for several days with the help of opium before he died surrounded by family on Friday, March 24.[90] He had been suffering from peritonitis.[91] At the time of his death, his estate was worth an estimated $356,320.[83] He is buried with both of his wives at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His last few years were spent translating the poetry of Michelangelo. Longfellow never considered it complete enough to be published during his lifetime, but a posthumous edition was collected in 1883. Scholars generally regard the work as autobiographical, reflecting the translator as an aging artist facing his impending death.[92]