朗费罗和生命颂

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

✓Outline:

•Introduction

•Life and Career

•Major Works

•Contributions and Limitation

•Writing Style

• A Psalm of Life

✓Introduction

Name: Longfellow

Nationality: America

Born: February 27,1807 in Portland

Died: March 24,1882 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Career: poet professor

✓Life and Career

1.Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807, to Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah

(Wadsworth) Longfellow in Portland, Maine, and he grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House.

2.Henry was enrolled in a dame school (an early form of a private elementary school in

English-speaking countries. ) at the age of three and by age six was enrolled at the private Portland Academy.

3.In the fall of 1822, the 15-year-old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in

Brunswick, Maine, alongside his brother Stephen.

4.After graduating in 1825, he was offered a job as professor of modern languages at his

alma mater.

5.Then he went to Europe to study language, against the wish of his father who thought his

son should become a lawyer. For 4 years, he studied languages in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and England.

6.In Madrid, he spent time with Washington Irving and was particularly impressed by the

author's work ethic. Irving encouraged the young Longfellow to pursue writing.

7.He served as a professor of modern languages at Bowdoin College from 1829---1835.

8.He taught modern languages at Harvard from 1836 to 1854.

9.His first marriage ended in 1835, when his wife died. In 1843, he married the daughter of

a wealthy industrialist who gave him wealth, and domestic happiness.

10.He spent his last days in Cambridge in 1882.

11.He is the only American man of letters to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Conner in

Westminster Abbey.

✓ Major Works

1) V oices of the Night (1839)

«夜吟»

his first collection of poems

2) Ballads and Other Poems (1841)

«歌谣及其他»

Ballads and Other Poem contains:

(1 ) The Village Blacksmith 《乡村铁匠》

(2) A Psalm of Life 《人生礼赞》

(3) The Skeleton in Aromor 《铠甲骷髅》

3) Evangeline «伊凡吉林»

4) Hiawatha, based on American Indian legends . «海华沙之歌»

5) Tales of a Wayside Inn

«路畔旅舍的故事»

6) His translation of Divine Comedy

《神曲》of Dante

✓ Contributions and Limitation

Contributions :

1. He is the most important one of the “New England

P oets ”(other poets: William Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Greenleaf Whittier).

2. Based on his knowledge of European literary tradition, he became a master of sonnets and reflective lyric.

3. He did a great service to American literature in domesticating certain forms from European literature.

4. His search for new forms and his efforts in conveying didacticism （教导主义） in popular poems brought him a popularity with the common readers in America that has never been approached by any other poet.

He was also important as a translator; his translation of Dante became a required possession for those who wanted to be a part of high culture. He also encouraged and supported other translators. In honor of Longfellow's role with translations, Harvard established the Longfellow Institute in 1994, dedicated to literature written in the United States in languages other than

English.

Mary Storer Potter

became

Longfellow's first

wife in 1831 and

died four years later.

After a seven-year courtship, Longfellow married Frances Appleton in

1843.