Tag Archives: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman

“I like to think that eventually he will shame us into becoming Americans again.” — Guy Davenport on Walt Whitman Whitman is the organizing principle behind my review of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan quotes Whitman all the … Continue reading

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“And now I long to try a loftier strain, the sublimer Song whose broken melodies have for so many years breathed through my soul…” — poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“He suffered excessive popularity; he has now suffered three quarters of a century of critical neglect.” – Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807, in Portland, Maine. He was the first … Continue reading

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“Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.” — W.H. Auden on Jane Austen

“The little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush.” — Jane Austen on her writing In 2020 – which feels like it was 1,000 years ago, I reviewed the new film adaptation … Continue reading

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Today In History: April 18-19, 1775: “I Set Off Upon a Very Good Horse”

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride. The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them … Continue reading

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Today in history: February 27, 1807

“Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Beautiful. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day, in 1807, … Continue reading

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Today in history: April 18-19, 1775: “I set off upon a very good Horse”

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride. The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them … Continue reading

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On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.

On the night of April 18, into April 19, in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride. The spring of 1775 was a tense time. Prominent Bostonians were under constant threat of arrest from the British, and many of them … Continue reading

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“On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year”

Are there more magical words in the world of literature than: “an earlier draft has been discovered”?? As in: In Longfellow’€™s papers, Charlie found what appears to be the first complete draft of “€œPaul Revere’€™s Ride.”€ My love of Longfellow’s … Continue reading

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“capital picture”

Her writings are a capital picture of real life, with all the little wheels and machinery laid bare like a patent clock. But she explains and fills out too much. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Jane Austen

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Happy Birthday, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow!

“Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Words to live by, as far as I’m concerned. Henry Wadsworth … Continue reading

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