2. Background
Born: February 27,teaching Portland,
In 1836, he began 1807 in at Harvard
Maine
University
Son of Stephen and Zilpah
1843 he married Frances Appleton
Longfellow children together
and had six
At the age of six, Henryfrom being
His wife died tragically Longfellow
showed aburned after her dress caught
severely great propensity toward
writing
on fire
At age 19, he famous beard conceals
Longfellow’s graduated from
Bowdoin College with classmate he
his scars, which he obtained when
Nathaniel Hawthorne wife from the
attempted to save his
He traveled throughout Europe for
fire
three years, preparing himself Comedy
He translated Dante’s Devine to for
hismeans of comfort
as new career as a college professor
in modern languages 1882 from
He died on March 24,
1831 Married Mary Storer Potter,
peritonitis
but later died during a miscarriage
3. Mary Storer Potter, Fanny Appleton Frances Appleton,
Longfellow’s first wife Longfellow, with sons Longfellow’s second
Charles and Ernest wife
4. Significant Works
Poetry: Other Works:
Evangeline (1847) Dante’s Divine Comedy of Alighieri
The Seaside and Fireside (1849) (poetry in translation)
The Song of Hiawatha (1855) Hyperion: A Romance (Fiction)
The Courtship of Miles Standish
(1858) Kavanagh: A Tale (Fiction)
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere The Spanish Student (Drama)
(1860)
Poets and Poetry of Europe (poetry
Three Books of Song (1872)
The Masque of Pandora and Other in translation)
P
Poems (1875)
5. Literary Period
Romanticism
A style of writing that came about in the late 18th century.
It focuses on the natural world, and on abstract ideas of
imagination, on love, death, nature, and freedom
Romantic style values feelings and intuition over reasoning
The themes in most of Longfellow’s poems tend to use the
Romantic writing style through the actions of characters
6. In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face — the face of one long dead—
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
7. There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
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.
8. Analysis of Poem
This poem reflects the grief and agony of Longfellow as he remembers the tragic incident of his
wife’s death. Her dress caught fire as she was sealing a locket of her daughter's hair (a far more
popular keepsake in the 19th century than later), and Longfellow was severely burned as he put
out the flames but failed to save her life. It is probably a testament to his will that her gentle face
(line 2) appears as he must have so often seen it during their 19-year marriage instead of in the
agonized aftermath of her "martyrdom by fire" (line 6). Although the poet saw only a picture of
the Colorado mountain with its cruciform snow-filled crevices, he liked the image so well that
he took it as emblematic of his circumstances. As her death occurred in July 1861, internal
evidence ("I carried this cross eighteen years," line 13) dates the composition of the poem as
1879. As an image, the cross "upon [his] breast" (line 11) suggests the white welts that can scar
a burn victim, but it reminds him not of her death but of her life in much the same way that the
Christian cross represents not the death of Christ but his life and the promise of Resurrection.
Instead of reminding him of her suffering, the pristine snow brings to mind her purity.
9. Longfellow’s Inspiration
“Longfellow’s sonnet “The Cross of Snow” was inspired by two
images familiar to Longfellow. One was Fanny’s portrait by
Samuel Worcester Rowse (1859) and the other was an engraving
of Jackson’s photograph of the “Mountain of the Holy Cross”
(1875). This engraving showed a striking natural phenomenon in
the Rocky Mountains; snow- filled crevices on the side of a
mountain in the Rockies projected the image of a cross which
could be seen from many miles away. Because the crevices were
so high on the mountain, the crevices remained snow-filled year
around. In the mid 1800’s few Easterners, including Longfellow,
had visited the Rocky Mountains, and such an image created
much interest back East.” (Willink, Mary)
Mountain of the Holy Cross Fannie Appleton Longfellow
10. Literary Criticism
“During his lifetime, Longfellow was immensely popular and widely
admired. He was the first American poet to gain a favorable
international reputation, and his poetry was praised abroad by such
eminent authors as Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Alfred Tennyson,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman. In the decades that
followed, however, the idealism and sentimentality that characterize
much of his verse fell out of favor with younger poets and critics
who were beginning to embrace realism and naturalism. Longfellow's
literary reputation further declined in the twentieth century with the
advent of Modernism. Reviled as superficial and didactic, his poetry
was largely dismissed and received little further critical attention.”
11. Literary Criticism
“Longfellow is classified with others in Fields's Houghton-Mifflin
stable as one of those authors used to impose a presumed "high
culture" of English Puritan origins on subsequent generations and
immigrant populations, even though Longfellow might also be
recognized as one whose broadly inclusive responsiveness to
European traditions could have smoothed assimilation for the
children of newcomers from central and southern Europe. In
many ways Longfellow may be read as a friend of American
multiculturalism. His reputation could also benefit from renewed
critical respect for sentimentalism, especially as that respect gets
extended to male authors."
12. Literary Criticism
“Longfellow gave poetry higher standing within American society
than it had enjoyed ever before, not only by exemplifying the
appeal of graceful, informed writing to an exceptionally wide
reading audience but also by making art itself one of his centering
themes. In an age that judged literature largely in moral terms as
expressive of an author's personal virtues, Longfellow became
everyman's kindly, sympathizing, gently encouraging friend. At
present, however, Longfellow has been relegated to the status of
an historically interesting minor poet whose poems occupy only a
few pages in recent anthologies and do so in ways that obscure
the reasons for his original popularity.”
13. Achievements
More than a million copies of his poetry had been sold.
Granted private audiences with Queen Victoria
Granted honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge
Became the first American to be honored a memorial in the
Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey--a distinction reserved for
the greatest English poets
In America, a national holiday was declared to celebrate his
seventy-fifth birthday
From the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, nearly
every school-age child in the United States and most of Britain
were required to read some of his poetry.
14. Longfellow’s Birthplace:
Portland, Maine
Longfellow and Senator
Charles Sumner
Longfellow’s memorial in
the Poets’ Corner of
Westminster Abbey The first Longfellow stamp,
issued in Portland on
February 16, 1940
15. Bibliography
Huff, Randall. "'The Cross of Snow'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File,
Inc., 2007.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0091&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 12, 2012).
Jenson, Susan. "Classic Authors: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." Suite101 Popular Archive. 17 Aug. 1999. Web. 12 Apr.
2012. <http://archive.suite101.com/article.cfm/classic_literature/24284>.
"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." : The Poetry Foundation. 1999. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/henry-wadsworth-longfellow>.
Williams, Cecil B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: Twayne, 1964. Print.
Arvin, Newton. Longfellow His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962. Print.
"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." : The Poetry Foundation. 1999. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/henry-wadsworth-longfellow>.
Bloom, Harold. The Best Poems Of The English Language, From Chaucer Through Frost. NY: HarperCollins, 2004. Print
Gioia, Dana. "Longfellow." Poets.org. N.p., 1997. Web. 10
Apr. 2012. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/143>.
• Irmscher, Christoph. Longfellow Redux. University of Illinois, 2006
16. Bibliography
•Merriman, C. D. “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- Biography.
”The Literature Network. N.p., 2000. Web. 10
Apr. 2012. <http://www.onlineliterature.com/henry_
longfellow/>.
Oakes, Elizabeth H. "Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth." American Writers,
American Biographies. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2004. Bloom’s
Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp
ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=
AW144&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 13, 2012).
Maine Historical Society. Maine Memory Network. N.p., 2012. Web. 9 May 2012.
<http://www.mainememory.net/artifact/4121/>.
Famous People. thefamouspeople. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 May 2012. <http:
www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/henry-wadsworth-longfellow-186.php>.
Gale, Robert L. "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." The Victorian Web. N.p., 2004. Web. 9 May 2012.
<http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/brock/51.html>.
LaRocco, Jeremiah. "Mount of the Holy Cross." Wikipedia. N.p., 2012. Web. 9 May 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_of_the_Holy_Cross,_2009.jpg>.
Arvin, Newton. Longfellow: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963.
