Inventing Americas: 1800–1865 203written by the time he was 40, and published in two volumes, titled simply Poems,
appearing in 1821 and 1832. He continued as an active writer and translator,
however, right up until the end of his life. Notable among his many later volumes are
his translations of the Iliad (1870) and the Odyssey (1871–1872), since they show
Bryant’s skill with the blank verse line and his ability to assume a simple, epic nobility
of tone and style.
A poet who eventually outdistanced even Bryant in terms of popularity among
his contemporaries was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Born in Maine,
Longfellow published his first prose work, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea,
in 1833–1835. A series of travel sketches reminiscent of Irving’s Sketch Book, this
was followed by Hyperion (1839), a semi-autobiographical romance, Voices of the
Night (1839), his first book of poetry Ballads and Other Poems (1841), and Poems
on Slavery (1842). His fame increased with the publication of a poetic drama, The
Spanish Student (1843), The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845), and Kavanagh
(1849), a semi-autobiographical prose tale. Three long poems published at about
this time also show Longfellow’s ambition to create an American epic poetry by
choosing domestic legends and casting them in classical forms. Evangeline (1847),
written in unrhymed hexameter lines modeled on the Greek and Latin lines of the
epic poems of Homer and Virgil, tells the tragic story of the heroine’s search for her
lover. It is set in Acadie, a province of Canada roughly corresponding to present-day
Nova Scotia. The Courtship of Miles Standish (1856) is a legend of early New
England, also written in unrhymed hexameter. And The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
tells the story of a Native American hero. Based partly on the work of Henry Rowe
Schoolcraft, it uses an accentual, unrhymed meter that Longfellow developed from
his reading of the Finnish epic, Kalevala. Longfellow’s popularity was by now such
that he felt compelled to resign a professorial post he held at Harvard to concen-
trate on his writing. The tragic death of his wife, in an accident in 1861, rendered
him silent for a while. But many more books then followed, including further
volumes of poetry such as Tales of a Wayside Inn (published in three parts in 1863,
1872, and 1874), Ultima Thule (1880), and In the Harbor (1882), and a translation
of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1865–1867). During his final years, honors were heaped
on him, and not just in his own country. During a tour of Europe he was given
a private audience with Queen Victoria; and, after his death, he became the
only American poet to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of
Westminster Abbey.
One of the few of his contemporaries not to admire Longfellow was Edgar Allan
Poe, who described him as a plagiarist. The charge might have been unjust, but it did
and still does point to a problem. For all his interest in American themes and legends,
and his dedication to the idea of an American epic, Longfellow relied on European
literary forms and conventions. He did so quite deliberately, because he believed
in the value, the centrality of the European-American community and its tradition.
So convinced was he of its value, in fact, that he inserted a long passage in Kavanagh
to explain to his audience exactly how he thought the American literature of the
future had to depend on European models:GGray_c02.indd 203ray_c 02 .indd 203 8 8/1/2011 7:54:43 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 43 AM