5. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 1807-1882. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, a distinguished writer of both prose and poetry, was born in Portland, Maine, on the 27th of February, 1807. He was educated at Bowdoin College, where he graduated in the same class with Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1825. After his graduation he studied law for a short time in the office of his father, the Hon. Stephen Longfellow, but on his appointment in 1826 to the professorship of Modern Languages and Literature in the college from which he had graduated, he went to Europe, where he spent three years in travel and study, preparing himself for the duties of his position. On his return he delivered a course of lectures at Bowdoin, and also contributed a number of valuable articles to the North American Review. Longfellow held his position at Bowdoin until 1835, when he was chosen Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard College. He then made a second tour of Europe, to fit himself the more thoroughly for his work, this time visiting Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Switzerland. He held the position at Harvard until the year 1854, when he resigned his professorship. Longfellow wrote and published a number of acceptable verses in the United States Literary Gazette as early as 1825, but his best work was done later in life. In 1835 he published a prose work, Outre Mer; or, Sketches from Beyond the Sea, which from its elegance of diction and fastidious scholarship at once attracted attention. Four years later he published his second prose work, Hyperion: a Romance. Longfellow's first volume of poetry, entitled Voices of the Night, which included sucn favorites as the "Psalm of Life," "Midnight Mass for the Dying Year," and others, was issued also in 1839. Following this volume, there came in 1841 Ballads and Other Poems, and then, in rapid succession, Poems on Slavery, The Spanish Student, a tragedy; The Poets and Poetry of Europe, The Belfry of Bruges, Evangeline, an extended poem in hexameter verse; Kavanagh, a prose story; The Seaside and Fireside, a collection of short poems; The Golden Legend, The Song of Hiawatha, an American Indian tale; Miles Standish, Tales of a Wayside Inn, Flower de Luce; a translation of Dante, The Divine Tragedy; The Three Books of Song, The Masque of Pandora, Keramos, and others. Some of Longfellow's most popular poems are Evangeline, The Old Clock on the Stairs, Excelsior, Skeleton in Armor, The Builders, The Building of the Ship, Resignation, The Hanging of the Crane, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Paul Revere's Ride. Mr. Longfellow's house at Cambridge is the one once occupied by Washington as his head-quarters. The poet was twice married: his first wife died in Holland in 1835, and his second was burned to death in 1861, her clothes having taken fire accidentally while she was playing with her children. The poet died at his home in Cambridge, March 24, 1882. CRITICISM BY GEORGE W. CURTIS. LONGFELLOW's literary career has been contemporary with the sensational school, but he has been entirely untainted by it. The literary style of an intellectually introverted age or author will always be somewhat ob scure, however gorgeous; but Longfellow's mind taker a simple, child-like hold of life, and his style never betrays the inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emotions that are but vaguely perceived, which is the characteristic of the best sensational writing. Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent contemporary masters which is so ripe and racy as his. He does not make rhetoric stand for passion, nor vagueness for profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a voluntary and malicious "Bohemian as to conceive that either in life or letters a man is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he used to be accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics, who held that Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance was the royal prerogative of genius. His literary scholarship, also his delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the learned poets. THE LAUNCH OF THE SHIP. NOTE. This selection is taken from Longfellow's Seaside and Fireside poems. ALL is finished; and at length Has come the bridal-day Of beauty and of strength. To-day the vessel shall be launched! With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched; Slowly, in all his splendors dight, The great sun rises to behold the sight. ANALYSIS.-1-3. Point out the figure. 3. To what do beauty and strength refer? 5. fleecy clouds. What figure? 7. What is the meaning of dight? Give a synonym. 8. Point out the figure. ANALYSIS.-9-19. What extended figure? 18. Parse impatient. What figure in the line? 24. snow-white signals. What figure? 25. Point out the figure in the line. 31. Like the shadows, etc. What figure? 33. Name the subject of Fall. The prayer is said, The service read; The joyous bridegroom bows his head; Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek Down his own the tears begin to run. The shepherd of that wandering flock Of the sailor's heart,― All its pleasures and its griefs; All its shallows and rocky reefs; With such resistless undertow, And lift and drift, with terrible force, The will from its moorings and its course. Therefore he spake, and thus said he: ANALYSIS. 35. Supply the ellipsis. 44. Point out the figures in the line. 45. What is the meaning of wold? What figure in the line? 46. What is the meaning of this line? 48. Give the subject of Spake. 50. tedious to the bridegroom's ear. Is this figurative or literal? 51-58. What figure in these lines? 59, 60. Pcint out the figure. |