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Sorrento (Italy) (search for this): chapter 6
to be alone, and yet to feel that there was life all around us. We went up to the flat roof of the house where, as we walked, we could look down into the crowded street, and out upon the wonderful bay, and across the bay to Ischia and Capri and Sorrento, and over the house-tops and villas and vineyards to Vesuvius. The ominous pillar of smoke hung suspended above the fatal mountain, reminding us of Pliny, its first and noblest victim. A golden vapor crowned the bold promontory of Sorrento, anSorrento, and we thought of Tasso. Capri was calmly sleeping, like a sea-bird upon the waters; and we seemed to hear the voice of Tacitus from across the gulf of eighteen centuries, telling us that the historian's pen is still powerful to absolve or to condemn long after the imperial sceptre has fallen from the withered hand. There, too, lay the native island of him whose daring mind conceived the fearful vengeance of the Sicilian Vespers. We did not yet know Niccolini; but his grand verses had already b
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (search for this): chapter 6
ite approved by his more anxious father. In this case he carried his point, and he received on the 6th of September this simple record of proceedings from the college:— In the Board of Trustees of Bowdoin College, Sept. 1st, 1829: Mr. Henry W. Longfellow having declined to accept the office of instructor in modern languages. Voted, that we now proceed to the choice of a professor of modern languages. And Mr. H. W. Longfellow was chosen. Thus briefly was the matter settled, and Mr. H. W. Longfellow was chosen. Thus briefly was the matter settled, and he was launched upon his life's career at the age of twenty-two. Of those who made up his circle of friends in later years, Holmes had just graduated from Harvard, Sumner was a Senior there, and Lowell was a schoolboy in Cambridge. Few American colleges had at that time special professors of modern languages, though George Ticknor had set a standard for them all. Longfellow had to prepare his own text-books—to translate L'Homond's Grammar, to edit an excellent little volume of French Proverbe
Henry Longfellow (search for this): chapter 6
Chapter 5: first visit to Europe Longfellow's college class (1825) numbered thirty-seven, and his rank in it at graduation was nominally fourth—though actually r George Ticknor, then holding the professorship at Harvard College to which Longfellow was destined to succeed at a later day. Professor Ticknor had himself recentl spirits prevail over everything. Washington Irving, in his diary, speaks of Longfellow at Madrid as having arrived safely and cheerily, having met with no robbers. ican themes. It is to be noticed that whatever was artificial and foreign in Longfellow's work appeared before he went to Europe; and was the same sort of thing whic borne in mind that, as Mr. Scudder has pointed out in his admirable paper on Longfellow and his Art, the young poet was really preparing himself in Europe for his lir's Men and Letters, 28, 29. As an illustration of this obvious fact that Longfellow, during this first European visit, while nominally training himself for purel
Lea (search for this): chapter 6
n, until I told them I was an American. He settled down to his studies in Germany, his father having written, with foresight then unusual, I consider the German language and literature much more important than the Italian. He did not, however, have any sense of actual transplantation, as is the case with some young students, for although he writes to his sister (March 28, 1829), My poetic career is finished. Since I left America I have hardly put two lines together, yet he sends to Carey & Lea, the Philadelphia publishers, to propose a series of sketches and tales of New England life. These sketches, as given in his note-book, are as follows:— 1. New England Scenery: description of Sebago Pond; rafting logs; tavern scene; a tale connected with the Images. 2. A New England Village: country squire; the parson; the little deacon; the farm-house kitchen. 3. Husking Frolic: song and tales; fellow who plays the fife for the dance; tale of the Quoddy Indians; description of S
John A. Lowell (search for this): chapter 6
s of Bowdoin College, Sept. 1st, 1829: Mr. Henry W. Longfellow having declined to accept the office of instructor in modern languages. Voted, that we now proceed to the choice of a professor of modern languages. And Mr. H. W. Longfellow was chosen. Thus briefly was the matter settled, and he was launched upon his life's career at the age of twenty-two. Of those who made up his circle of friends in later years, Holmes had just graduated from Harvard, Sumner was a Senior there, and Lowell was a schoolboy in Cambridge. Few American colleges had at that time special professors of modern languages, though George Ticknor had set a standard for them all. Longfellow had to prepare his own text-books—to translate L'Homond's Grammar, to edit an excellent little volume of French Proverbes Dramatiques, and a small Spanish Reader, Novelas Españolas. He was also enlisted in a few matters outside, and drew up the outline of a prospectus for a girls' high school in Portland, such high sc
Margaret Fuller (search for this): chapter 6
king thoughts from Europe had shown the instinct which was to identify his later fame with purely American themes. It is to be noticed that whatever was artificial and foreign in Longfellow's work appeared before he went to Europe; and was the same sort of thing which appeared in all boyish American work at that period. It was then that in describing the Indian hunter he made the dance go round by the greenwood tree. He did not lay this aside at once after his return from Europe, and Margaret Fuller said of him, He borrows incessantly and mixes what he borrows. Criticising the very prelude to Voices of the Night, she pointed out the phrases pentecost and bishop's-caps as indications that he was not merely musing upon many things, but on many books which described them. But the habit steadily diminished. His very gift at translation, in which he probably exceeded on the whole any other modern poet, led him, nevertheless, always to reproduce old forms rather than create new ones,
French (search for this): chapter 6
nd we had at least a dozen of them with us. In spite of this rather fatiguing opportunity, he was not at once at home in French, but wrote ere long, I am coming on famously, I assure you. He wrote from Auteuil, where he soon went, Attached to the h can at any time hear French conversation,—for the French are always talking. Besides, the conversation is the purest of French, inasmuch as persons from the highest circles in Paris are residing here, —amongst others, an old gentleman who was of t all. Longfellow had to prepare his own text-books—to translate L'Homond's Grammar, to edit an excellent little volume of French Proverbes Dramatiques, and a small Spanish Reader, Novelas Españolas. He was also enlisted in a few matters outside, andbeing then almost as rare as professorships of modern languages. He was also librarian. He gave a course of lectures on French, Spanish, and Italian literature, but there seems to have been no reference to German, which had not then come forward in
Bowdoin (search for this): chapter 6
Chapter 5: first visit to Europe Longfellow's college class (1825) numbered thirty-seven, and his rank in it at graduation was nominally fourth—though actually third, through the sudden death of a classmate just before Commencement. Soon after his graduation, an opportunity occurred to establish a professorship of modern languages in the college upon a fund given by Mrs. Bowdoin; and he, being then scarcely nineteen, and nominally a law student in his father's office, was sent to Europe to prepare himself for this chair, apparently on an allowance of six hundred dollars a year. The college tradition is that this appointment—which undoubtedly determined the literary tendencies of his whole life—was given to him in consequence of the impression made upon an examining committee by the manner in which he had translated one of Horace's odes. He accordingly sailed from New York for Europe on May 15, 1826, having stopped at Boston on the way, where he dined with Professor George Tick<
John Locke (search for this): chapter 6
vance, the more I see to be done. The more, too, I am persuaded of the charlatanism of literary men. For the rest, my fervent wish is to return home. His brother tells us that among his note-books of that period, we find a favorite passage from Locke which reappears many years after in one of his letters and in his impromptu address to the children of Cambridge, in 1880: Thus the ideas as well as the children of our youth often die before us, and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, bk. II. ch. 10, Of Retention. He also included a quotation from John Lyly's Endymion, which ten years later furnished the opening of his own Hyperion. Dost thou know what a poet is? Why, fool, a poet is as much as one should say—a poet. When we consider what he had just before written to his sister, it only furn
J. Sannazaro (search for this): chapter 6
of Tacitus from across the gulf of eighteen centuries, telling us that the historian's pen is still powerful to absolve or to condemn long after the imperial sceptre has fallen from the withered hand. There, too, lay the native island of him whose daring mind conceived the fearful vengeance of the Sicilian Vespers. We did not yet know Niccolini; but his grand verses had already begun their work of regeneration in the Italian heart. Virgil's tomb was not far off. The spot consecrated by Sannazaro's ashes was near us. And over all, with a thrill like that of solemn music, fell the splendor of the Italian sunset. Scudder's Men and Letters, 28, 29. As an illustration of this obvious fact that Longfellow, during this first European visit, while nominally training himself for purely educational work, was fitting himself also for a literary career, we find from his letter to his father, May 15, 1829, that while hearing lectures in German and studying faithfully that language, he
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