Perhaps you still remember reciting lines from "The Village Blacksmith" and "Paul Revere's Ride." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was once a world-renowned poet, who helped to create an American mythology. In this biography, Charles Calhoun sheds light on the life and works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Calhoun helps us to rediscover why Longfellow made such a mark upon American culture, and he helps us to see why we can't quite seem to forget about him--even after all these years.
Developing Imaginings
Longfellow might have become a lawyer (per his father's advice), but Henry Wadsworth seems to have been something of a dreamer, immersing himself in Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Thomson, Goldsmith, Plutarch, Cowper, Stevenson, Cervantes, and others. Instead of hunting, Calhoun says that the boy preferred "to sit under the trees and read and mediate the rough and resiny Maine forest into the greenwood of his British literary masters." Longfellow eventually discovered the "mysterious door" to Washington Irving's Sketch-Book, where he learned "how unpredictable the border between imagination and reality could be."
Years later, he wrote his father, "I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centers on it." Before he could achieve that lofty goal, he would tour Europe, he would immerse himself in cultures and languages completely foreign to his understanding, he would return home to launch a life-long effort to open the eyes of Americans to the wonders of world literature, and he would begin to develop his own conception of poetry.
Longfellow might have become a lawyer (per his father's advice), but Henry Wadsworth seems to have been something of a dreamer, immersing himself in Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Thomson, Goldsmith, Plutarch, Cowper, Stevenson, Cervantes, and others. Instead of hunting, Calhoun says that the boy preferred "to sit under the trees and read and mediate the rough and resiny Maine forest into the greenwood of his British literary masters." Longfellow eventually discovered the "mysterious door" to Washington Irving's Sketch-Book, where he learned "how unpredictable the border between imagination and reality could be."
Years later, he wrote his father, "I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centers on it." Before he could achieve that lofty goal, he would tour Europe, he would immerse himself in cultures and languages completely foreign to his understanding, he would return home to launch a life-long effort to open the eyes of Americans to the wonders of world literature, and he would begin to develop his own conception of poetry.
Loneliness & Tears
Longfellow's path to fame would not always be smooth. And, perhaps it was in experiencing some of his most heart-rending tragedies that he developed some of his most memorable poetry. His first wife, Mary, died shortly after a miscarriage, which took place in a darkened Amsterdam hotel room--with only her husband beside her. Calhoun writes, "she left her life with the grace and presence of mind of a young woman who had nothing to fear from what was to come."Longfellow finally found love with Fanny. He wrote to his sister: "Life was too lonely--and sad;--with little to soothe and calm me. Now the future opens its long closed gates into pleasant field and lands of quiet." In the years to come, one of his children died as an infant; and then he lost his second wife in a freakish fire. The burns Longfellow retained from the accident may account for the full beard he wore from that time until his death. Cornelius Felton said of Longfellow after the funeral, "The world henceforth will be strangely changed for him."
What the Critics Said
Although a few of his poems are still read in classrooms, Longfellow's legacy has been undermined by a number of Modernist critics like George Saintsbury and Ludwig Lewis. Of course, criticism of Longfellow's poetry began in earnest with reviews from Edgar Allan Poe, who claimed Longfellow had written "incendiary doggrel." Calhoun explains, "Poe not only attacked Longfellow's style and choice of subjects but declared that his very conception of what it is to be a poet was wrongheaded."
Longfellow has been condemned not only for a lack of originality, but also for over-sentimentality and plagiarism. No wonder Calhoun's biography is the first of its kind in nearly 50 years. Longfellow has received such a number of stains on his reputation, from which most poets could never hope to recover.
Although a few of his poems are still read in classrooms, Longfellow's legacy has been undermined by a number of Modernist critics like George Saintsbury and Ludwig Lewis. Of course, criticism of Longfellow's poetry began in earnest with reviews from Edgar Allan Poe, who claimed Longfellow had written "incendiary doggrel." Calhoun explains, "Poe not only attacked Longfellow's style and choice of subjects but declared that his very conception of what it is to be a poet was wrongheaded."
Longfellow has been condemned not only for a lack of originality, but also for over-sentimentality and plagiarism. No wonder Calhoun's biography is the first of its kind in nearly 50 years. Longfellow has received such a number of stains on his reputation, from which most poets could never hope to recover.
Re-imagining Longfellow
If Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was once "admirable," a "vitalizing force," or "at the very center" of American culture, his footprints must still remain in ways far beyond phrases like "footprints on the sands of time." Perhaps his voice became intermixed with the rabble of so many others as to become inaudible; or maybe those lines were just never strong enough to last. In the end, Calhoun offers the jumble and stumble of crowds of visitors to a Longfellow landmark, as he says: "It would be an exaggeration to say that Longfellow invented America. But that he imagined and perfected and made memorable to many aspects of how America is conceived remains his most enduring achievement."
