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The American Fellow By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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The American Fellow: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a revolutionary poet and writer during the period of American cultural, political, and industrial revolution. Being born the same year that the importation of slaves was prohibited, he saw many ground-breaking paradigm shifts in the United States, and lived through large historical events such as the founding of Harvard Law School, the assassination of Lincoln, and lived to see a large portion of the second industrial revolution. Longfellow is seen as one of the most influential poets in the entirety of American history, and is best known for his poem “Paul Revere’s Ride”. Born in Portland, Maine in 1807, Longfellow slowly settled himself into limelight with his …show more content…

Longfellow’s early age tells an interesting tale of how he was as a person. Henry was generally thought to have a “lively imagination”, and a great yearning to learn. According to his family, Henry has always had a knack to write poetry, and in hopes of achieving his dream, published his first poem at the age of 13 in the “Portland Gazette”, the paper of his hometown. Unfortunately for Longfellow, this poem was vastly unsuccessful, and many family members considered the poem to be terrible without realizing who it was written by. Henry heard his father call it “absolutely terrible”, but did not step back from continuing his hobby and dreams as a literary scholar. His true passion for writing came about in his years at a college called Bowdoin College, where his father was a trustee. The path of a literary scholar was initially a difficult one for Henry, but due to his father’s understanding and diligence to allow his to pursue his passions, he was given a position as professor at the College in Modern European Languages. In order to gain the required knowledge for this position, Henry took a three year period to study in Europe, which gave birth to his first book: Outre Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea. This kindled the beginning of his relationship with Edgar Allen Poe, who accused his of

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