Longfellow

Longfellow, Henry Wadswoeth (1807-82), an American poet, whose name is a household word on both sides of the Atlantic. He was born at Portland, in Maine, and was educated at Bowdoin College, where he had Nathaniel Hawthorne for classmate. He distinguished himself in ancient and modern languages and translations, and in 1826 he went to France, Spain, Italy, and Germany with a view to a professorship of Foreign Languages and Literature. The fruits of this trip are embodied in Outre Mer, as were the fruits of a later one in Hyperion, two prose works which some people esteem almost as much as his poetry. In 1836 he was appointed professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Harvard. In 1839 appeared his first book of verse, entitled Voices of the Night, and from that time the productions of his pen flowed steadily forth. Among his longer works Evangeline, The Building of the Ship, Hiawatha, The Golden Legend, The Spanish Student, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Wie Tales of a Wayside Inn, are widely read and admired; while of his short poems, The Wreck of the "Hesperus," The Village Blacltsmitk, The Slave's Bream, The Sands of Life, The Belfry of Bruges, The Children's Hour, and many others are universal favourites. He was also singularly successful in his translations from the Norse and German.