Word: longfellow
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Emerson was not at ease with Long-fellow. To him the popular poet seemed too much hedged about with formality, too loftily perched on the Cambridge Parnassus. Mr. Gorman, owever, sees in Longfellow "our great Victorian," "an American Victoria," "a fascinating man ... no more dead than the era between 1830 and 1880 in New England is dead", and one who must be understood, with his age, if we are to see "what we are and from what curious urges we evolved." Mr. Gorman is careful not to claim that his portrait "is the man," and professes to give nothing more...
...Longfellow who is often more European than American, sentimental didactic, too imitative often, bookish in inspiration, didactic, and typical of much of the narowness in his time and environment, has been often displayed before. So far as facts are concerned, Mr. Gorman repeats with accuracy for the most part. It may not be ungenerous, however, to remark that his summary (pp. 96-97) of American literature before Longfellow seems unhappy in its choice of critical epithets, and shaky in its chronology. One may be excused for disagreeing with the biographer's view that Longfellow's appreciation of wine...
...journal of Longfellow, under the date of November 8. 1841 is the following entry. "This evening it has come into my mind to undertake a long and elaborate poem by the holy name of Christ, the theme of which would be the various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages...
Perhaps the most successful and interesting part of this work is the second part of the Trilogy, that dealing with Christendom in the Middle Ages, and it is to this portion that Longfellow himself attached the greatest importance...
...core of his poem, he took the story of "Der Arme Heinrich" a tale led by Hartmann von der Ane, a German nidnnesinger of the twelfth century. It the elaboration of this story says Longfellow. "I have tried to show. . ., among other things, that through the darkness and corruption of the Middle As ran a bright, deep stream of Faith, strong enough for all the exigencies of his and death...