Editing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (section)

==Writing==

===Style===
[[File:Henry W Longfellow with signature-crop.jpg|thumb|right|Longfellow circa 1850s]]
Much of Longfellow's work is categorized as [[lyric poetry]], but he experimented with many forms, including [[hexameter]] and [[free verse]].<ref>{{harvp|Arvin|1963|p=182|ps=.}}</ref> His published poetry shows great versatility, using [[anapest]]ic and [[trochee|trochaic]] forms, [[blank verse]], [[heroic couplet]]s, [[ballad]]s, and [[sonnet]]s.<ref>{{harvp|Williams|1964|p=130|ps=.}}</ref> Typically, he would carefully consider the subject of his poetic ideas for a long time before deciding on the right metrical form for it.<ref>{{harvp|Williams|1964|p=156|ps=.}}</ref> Much of his work is recognized for its melodious musicality.<ref>{{harvp|Brooks|1952|p=174|ps=.}}</ref> As he says, "what a writer asks of his reader is not so much to ''like'' as to ''listen''".<ref>{{harvp|Wagenknecht|1966|p=145|ps=.}}</ref>

As a very private man, Longfellow did not often add autobiographical elements to his poetry. Two notable exceptions are dedicated to the death of members of his family. "Resignation" was written as a response to the death of his daughter Fanny in 1848; it does not use first-person pronouns and is instead a generalized poem of mourning.<ref name=Irmscher46>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=46|ps=.}}</ref> The death of his second wife Frances, as biographer Charles Calhoun wrote, deeply affected Longfellow personally but "seemed not to touch his poetry, at least directly".<ref>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=229|ps=.}}</ref> His memorial poem to her was the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" and was not published in his lifetime.<ref name=Irmscher46/>

Longfellow often used [[didacticism]] in his poetry, but he focused on it less in his later years.<ref>{{harvp|Arvin|1963|p=183|ps=.}}</ref> Much of his poetry imparts cultural and moral values, particularly focused on life being more than material pursuits.<ref>{{cite book |last= Howe |first= Daniel Walker |title= What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 |location= Oxford |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 2007 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/whathathgodwroug00howe/page/630 630–631] |isbn= 978-0195078947 |url= https://archive.org/details/whathathgodwroug00howe/page/630 }}</ref> He often used [[allegory]] in his work. In "Nature", for example, death is depicted as bedtime for a cranky child.<ref>{{cite book |last= Loving |first= Jerome |title= Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself |url= https://archive.org/details/waltwhitmansongo00lovi |url-access= registration |publisher= University of California Press |year= 1999 |page=[https://archive.org/details/waltwhitmansongo00lovi/page/52 52] |isbn= 978-0520226876}}</ref> Many of the [[metaphor]]s that he used in his poetry came from legends, mythology, and literature.<ref>{{harvp|Arvin|1963|p=186|ps=.}}</ref> He was inspired, for example, by [[Norse mythology]] for "[[The Skeleton in Armor]]" and by Finnish legends for ''[[The Song of Hiawatha]]''.<ref>{{harvp|Brooks|1952|pp=175–176|ps=.}}</ref>

Longfellow rarely wrote on current subjects and seemed detached from contemporary American concerns.<ref name=Arvin321>{{harvp|Arvin|1963|p=321|ps=.}}</ref> Even so, he called for the development of high quality American literature, as did many others during this period. In ''[[Kavanagh (novel)|Kavanagh]]'', a character says:

<blockquote>We want a national literature commensurate with our mountains and rivers ... We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country ... We want a national drama in which scope shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled activity of our people ... In a word, we want a national literature altogether shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth, like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies.<ref>{{cite book |last= Lewis |first= R. W. B. |title= The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century |url= https://archive.org/details/americanadam030355mbp |location=Chicago |publisher= The University of Chicago Press |year= 1955 |page= [https://archive.org/details/americanadam030355mbp/page/n224 79]}}</ref></blockquote>

He was important as a translator; his translation of Dante became a required possession for those who wanted to be a part of high culture.<ref>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=237|ps=.}}</ref> He encouraged and supported other translators, as well. In 1845, he published ''The Poets and Poetry of Europe'', an 800-page compilation of translations made by other writers, including many by his friend and colleague [[Cornelius Conway Felton]]. Longfellow intended the anthology "to bring together, into a compact and convenient form, as large an amount as possible of those English translations which are scattered through many volumes, and are not accessible to the general reader".<ref>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=231|ps=.}}</ref> In honor of his role with translations, Harvard established the Longfellow Institute in 1994, dedicated to literature written in the United States in languages other than English.<ref>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=21|ps=.}}</ref>

In 1874, Longfellow oversaw a 31-volume anthology called ''Poems of Places'' which collected poems representing several geographical locations, including European, Asian, and Arabian countries.<ref name=Calhoun242>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=242|ps=.}}</ref> Emerson was disappointed and reportedly told Longfellow: "The world is expecting better things of you than this ... You are wasting time that should be bestowed upon original production".<ref>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=200|ps=.}}</ref> In preparing the volume, Longfellow hired [[Katherine Sherwood Bonner McDowell|Katherine Sherwood Bonner]] as an [[amanuensis]].<ref>{{harvp|Wagenknecht|1966|p=185|ps=.}}</ref>

===Critical response===
[[File:Sumner-Longfellow.jpg|thumb|right|Longfellow and his friend Senator [[Charles Sumner]]]]
Fellow Portland, Maine, native [[John Neal]] published the first substantial praise of Longfellow's work.<ref>{{Cite book | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn = 0-226-46969-7 | last = Lease | first = Benjamin | title = That Wild Fellow John Neal and the American Literary Revolution | location = Chicago, Illinois | year = 1972 | page = 129}}</ref> In the January 23, 1828, issue of his magazine ''[[The Yankee]]'', he wrote, "As for Mr. Longfellow, he has a fine genius and a pure and safe taste, and all that he wants, we believe, is a little more energy, and a little more stoutness."<ref>{{cite book | last = Sears | first = Donald A. | title = John Neal | publisher = Twayne Publishers | location = Boston, Massachusetts | year = 1978 | isbn = 080-5-7723-08 | page = 113, quoting Neal }}</ref>

Longfellow's early collections ''Voices of the Night'' and ''Ballads and Other Poems'' made him instantly popular. The ''New-Yorker'' called him "one of the very few in our time who has successfully aimed in putting poetry to its best and sweetest uses".<ref name=Calhoun138/> The ''[[Southern Literary Messenger]]'' immediately put Longfellow "among the first of our American poets".<ref name=Calhoun138/> Poet [[John Greenleaf Whittier]] said that Longfellow's poetry illustrated "the careful moulding by which art attains the graceful ease and chaste simplicity of nature".<ref>{{cite book |last= Wagenknecht |first=Edward |title= John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox |url= https://archive.org/details/johngreenleafwhi00wage |url-access= registration |location= New York |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 1967 |page= [https://archive.org/details/johngreenleafwhi00wage/page/113 113]}}</ref> Longfellow's friend [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.]] wrote of him as "our chief singer" and one who "wins and warms ... kindles, softens, cheers [and] calms the wildest woe and stays the bitterest tears!"<ref>{{harvp|Sullivan|1972|p=177|ps=.}}</ref>

The rapidity with which American readers embraced Longfellow was unparalleled in publishing history in the United States;<ref>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=139|ps=.}}</ref> by 1874, he was earning $3,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US|value=3000|start_year=1874}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US}}) per poem.<ref>{{cite book|author1-link=Miriam Levine |last= Levine |first= Miriam |title= A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England |location= Cambridge, MA |publisher= Apple-wood Books |year= 1984 |page= [https://archive.org/details/guidetowritersho00levi/page/127 127] |isbn= 978-0918222510 |url= https://archive.org/details/guidetowritersho00levi/page/127 }}</ref> His popularity spread throughout Europe as well, and his poetry was translated during his lifetime into Italian, French, German, and other languages.<ref>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=218|ps=.}}</ref> Scholar [[Bliss Perry]] suggests that criticizing Longfellow at that time was almost a criminal act equal to "carrying a rifle into a national park".<ref name=Sullivan178>{{harvp|Sullivan|1972|p=178|ps=.}}</ref> In the last two decades of his life, he often received requests for autographs from strangers, which he always sent.<ref>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=245|ps=.}}</ref> John Greenleaf Whittier suggested that it was this massive correspondence which led to Longfellow's death: "My friend Longfellow was driven to death by these incessant demands".<ref>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=36|ps=.}}</ref>

Contemporaneous writer [[Edgar Allan Poe]] wrote to Longfellow in May 1841 of his "fervent admiration which [your] genius has inspired in me" and later called him "unquestionably the best poet in America".<ref name=Meyers171>{{cite book |last= Meyers |first= Jeffrey |title= Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy |location= New York |publisher= Cooper Square Press |year= 1992 |page= 171 |isbn= 978-0815410386}}</ref> Poe's reputation increased as a critic, however, and he later publicly accused Longfellow of [[plagiarism]] in what Poe biographers call "The Longfellow War".<ref>{{harvp|Silverman|1991|p=250|ps=.}}</ref> He wrote that Longfellow was "a determined imitator and a dextrous adapter of the ideas of other people",<ref name=Meyers171/> specifically [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]].<ref>{{harvp|Silverman|1991|p=251|ps=.}}</ref> His accusations may have been a publicity stunt to boost readership of the ''[[Broadway Journal]]'', for which he was the editor at the time.<ref>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=160|ps=.}}</ref> Longfellow did not respond publicly but, after Poe's death, he wrote: "The harshness of his criticisms I have never attributed to anything but the irritation of a sensitive nature chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong".<ref name=Wagenknecht144>{{harvp|Wagenknecht|1966|p=144|ps=.}}</ref>

[[Margaret Fuller]] judged Longfellow "artificial and imitative" and lacking force.<ref>{{harvp|McFarland|2004|p=170|ps=.}}</ref> Poet [[Walt Whitman]] considered him an imitator of European forms, but he praised his ability to reach a popular audience as "the expressor of common themes—of the little songs of the masses".<ref>{{cite book |last= Reynolds |first= David S. |author-link= David S. Reynolds |title= Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography |location= New York |publisher= Vintage Books |year= 1995 |page= 353 |isbn= 978-0679767091}}</ref> He added, "Longfellow was no revolutionarie: never traveled new paths: of course never broke new paths."<ref>{{cite book |last= Blake |first= David Haven |title= Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity |location= New Haven, CT |publisher= Yale University Press |year= 2006 |page= 74 |isbn= 978-0300110173}}</ref> [[Lewis Mumford]] said that Longfellow could be completely removed from the history of literature without much effect.<ref name=Arvin321/>

Toward the end of his life, contemporaries considered him as more of a [[children's poetry|children's poet]],<ref>{{harvp|Calhoun|2004|p=246|ps=.}}</ref> as many of his readers were children.<ref>{{harvp|Brooks|1952|p=455|ps=.}}</ref> A reviewer in 1848 accused Longfellow of creating a "goody two-shoes kind of literature ... slipshod, sentimental stories told in the style of the nursery, beginning in nothing and ending in nothing".<ref>{{cite book |last= Douglas |first= Ann |author-link=Ann Douglas (historian) |title= The Feminization of American Culture |location= New York |publisher= Alfred A. Knopf |year= 1977 |page= [https://archive.org/details/feminizationofam00doug/page/235 235] |isbn= 978-0394405322 |url= https://archive.org/details/feminizationofam00doug/page/235 }}</ref> A more modern critic said, "Who, except wretched schoolchildren, now reads Longfellow?"<ref name=Arvin321/> A London critic in the ''London Quarterly Review'', however, condemned ''all'' American poetry—"with two or three exceptions, there is not a poet of mark in the whole union"—but he singled out Longfellow as one of those exceptions.<ref>{{harvp|Silverman|1991|p=199|ps=.}}</ref> An editor of the ''Boston Evening Transcript'' wrote in 1846, "Whatever the miserable envy of trashy criticism may write against Longfellow, one thing is most certain, no American poet is more read".<ref>{{harvp|Irmscher|2006|p=20|ps=.}}</ref>