🌈The Dead Poets Society🌈 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was one of the most celebrated American poets of the 19th century, known for his lyrical verse, storytelling, and translations of European classics. His life was marked by literary triumphs, personal tragedy, and a deep engagement with both American and European cultural traditions.

🌿 Early Life and Education
Born on February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine (then part of Massachusetts), Longfellow was the second of eight children.
His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a lawyer, and his mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, came from a distinguished Revolutionary War family.
He entered Bowdoin College at age 15, where he was classmates with Nathaniel Hawthorne.
After graduation, he was offered a professorship in modern languages on the condition that he studied in Europe first. He spent several years abroad, mastering French, Spanish, and Italian.

✍️ Literary Career
Longfellow began publishing poetry early, gaining national attention with "Voices of the Night" (1839) and "Ballads and Other Poems" (1841).
His most famous works include:
  "Paul Revere’s Ride"
  "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855) – an epic poem inspired by Native American legends
   "Evangeline" (1847) – a romantic narrative poem
  "A Psalm of Life" – a call to purposeful living
He also translated Dante’s "Divine Comedy", becoming the first American to do so in full.

💔 Personal Life and Tragedy
Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter in 1831, but she died in 1835 after a miscarriage.
He later married Frances Appleton in 1843, with whom he had six children. Tragically, she died in 1861 after her dress caught fire.
Her death deeply affected him, and he turned to translation and quieter forms of writing during his grief.

🏛 Legacy and Influence
Longfellow was the first American poet honored in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, with a bust installed in 1884.
He helped shape a distinctly American literary voice while drawing on European traditions.
Though later literary critics sometimes dismissed his work as overly sentimental, his poems were widely memorized and recited in schools for generations.

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

I shot an arrow into the air,  
It fell to earth, I knew not where;  
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight  
Could not follow it in its flight.  
 
I breathed a song into the air,  
It fell to earth, I knew not where;  
For who has sight so keen and strong,  
That it can follow the flight of song?  

Long, long afterward, in an oak  
I found the arrow, still unbroke;  
And the song, from beginning to end,  
I found again in the heart of a friend.

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sources:
Summary/CoPilot AI
Wikipedia
Britannica
The Poetry Foundation