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Tag: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Page 3 of 4)

Glebe

Glebe – turf, soil, ground

“Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of the village

Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe round about them,

Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a twelvemonth.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Seraglio

Seraglio – the place of a Turkish sultan or noble; formerly the palace of the sultan of Turkey at Constantinople

“There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and the harrows;

There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio,

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock with the selfsame

Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Lawrence Buell on Longfellow’s Hiawatha

“A fairer reading of Longfellow’s work, however, would be this: Hiawatha was a one-time experiment for him, not to be taken as the quintessence of his muse but as one among other occasional attempts to extend his treatment of American life beyond the regional and cultural boundaries he knew best… Although his experiment failed by any exacting standard, at least it was vigorous enough to establish itself, along with James Fenimore Cooper’s novels, ahead of the thousand of other contemporary literary evocations of Indian life.”

Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems

Mellifluous

Mellifluous – flowing sweetly and smoothly; honeyed; said of words, sounds, etc.

“[The two excepts of Hiawatha in this volume] show the poem to be mellifluous, prettily and sometimes even beautifully imagistic, but shallow; a pleasant literary-anthropological tour de force but nothing more.”

Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems

William Charvat on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Longfellow was one of the greatest of all promoters of the arts. Ninety percent of all the poems he ever wrote contained some favorable reference to poetry, poets, artists, art, scholars, or literature. Bards are sublime, grand, immortal; singers are sweet; songs are beautiful; art is wondrous; books are household treasures. Hans Sachs is remembered after kaisers are forgotten. Micheal Angelo is impudent to cardinals. John Alden, the scholar, wins out over Miles Standish, the man of action.”

William Charvat, as quoted by Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems

Effete

Effete – barren; no longer capable of producing, as an animal, a soil, etc; hence, exhausted, barren, sterile, inefficient though age, use, or decay

“Hawthorne’s work is shot through with shamefaced apologies, partly but only partly tongue-in-cheek, for the effeteness of romancing.

Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems

Primeval

Primeval – original; primitive; belonging to the first or earliest period

“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments free, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.”

Evangeline, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Pathos

Pathos – suffering; the quality in something experienced or observed which arouses feelings of pity, sorry, sympathy, or compassion

“…the more keenly tragic pathos of “The Cross of Snow” (1879)”.

Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems

Jejune & Imbroglio

Jejune – not nourishing; barren; not satisfying; not interesting; dull and flat

Imbroglio – a confused heap; an involved and confusing situation; state of confusion and complication; a confused misunderstanding or disagreement; entanglement

“These experiences gave [Longfellow] a deep first-hand understanding of love’s frustrations and sorrows. Such experiences underlie much of his work, including some jejune stuff like the posturings of the lovesick protagonist in Hyperion, but also his best, like the affectionately comic imbroglio in Miles Standish, the somber tenderness of Evangeline, and the more keenly tragic pathos of “The Cross of Snow” (1879), Longfellow’s sonnet written in memory of his second wife’s death.”

Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems

Quixotic (and a brief glimpse of Longfellow’s marital sorrows)

Quixotic – like or befitting Don Quixote; extravagantly chivalrous or romantically idealistic; visionary; impractical or impracticable

“On a more earthy and immediate level, [Longfellow] was shattered by his first wife’s death after miscarriage during his second European trip (1835); he endured years of frustration (1836-42) before his second wife-to-be consented to return his quixotic passion with anything more than friendship; and after nearly twenty years of happily married life thereafter, he was devastated again by her death in a freak accident in their home, when her gown caught fire.”

Lawrence Buell, in the introduction to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Selected Poems
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