Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most popular American poet of the nineteenth century, whose narrative poems became part of the national consciousness. Works like The Song of Hiawatha, Paul Revere's Ride, and Evangeline gave a young nation its mythic stories. His gift for musicality and accessible storytelling made poetry a household art.
Literary Elements & Structure
Longfellow was a master of narrative verse, working in a variety of meters including dactylic hexameter, trochaic tetrameter, and iambic pentameter. His language is melodic and direct, designed to be memorized and recited aloud. He drew on European poetic traditions, classical mythology, and American folk history, synthesizing them into a distinctly American voice.
Themes
- American identity and myth — He created foundational narratives that helped define American self-understanding.
- Loss and perseverance — His personal grief over his wives' deaths infuses his work with genuine sorrow and resilience.
- The passage of time — He meditated on aging, memory, and the relentless forward motion of life.
- Nature and the domestic — He found poetry in hearthsides, village greens, and the turn of seasons.
If You Match This Artist
You are a natural storyteller with a strong sense of rhythm — your poems move, they have momentum, and they stay in people's heads. You believe poetry should be accessible without being shallow, and you are right. Keep crafting poems that people want to read aloud; that is a gift not every poet has.
Literary Terms in Their Work
- Meter — The trochaic tetrameter of Hiawatha creates a drumbeat rhythm that carries the narrative forward.
- Rhyme Scheme — His regular rhyme patterns give his poems a musical, memorizable quality.
- Simile — Accessible comparisons make his imagery vivid and immediate for a broad audience.
- Repetition — Refrains and repeated phrases give his narrative poems the feel of oral tradition.
From the Power Poetry Archive
The original Henry Wadsworth Longfellow profile from the classic Power Poetry site.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine (then still part of Massachusetts) on February 27, 1807. Henry was the second son in a family of eight children and loved to read. As a child, he heard sailors speaking Spanish, French and German in the Portland streets and liked stories set in foreign places. In 1831, Henry married Mary Storer Potter and soon published his first book, a description of his travels to Europe called Outre Mer. However, in November 1835, Longfellow’s life was shaken when his wife died during a miscarriage. In 1836, Longfellow took a position at Harvard and published his first collection of poems three years later. He remarried in 1843 to Frances Appleton, a young woman from Boston, and together they had six children. In 1854, Longfellow decided to quit teaching to devote all his time to poetry and from 1866 to 1880, Longfellow published seven more books of poetry, and his seventy-fifth birthday in 1882 was celebrated across the country.
Movement:Fireside Poet
Prevalent Literary Themes:heroism, sentimentality, courage, patriotism
Prevalent Literary Devices: metaphor, simile, rhyme scheme
When matched to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, it means that similarities have been found between your poetic style and the themes and literary techniques typically seen in works by this famous poet. For example, you might use simile and strong metaphor the same way that Wadsworth Longfellow does. Recognizing these similarities is important because it gives you information about the history of your poetic style, which poets might inspire you, and what writing techniques you should try next.
Which Writing Techniques Should You Try Next?
Try using rhyme scheme and stark contrast in tone more often. You might also like experimenting with using a formal voice to stress the importance of your words or using foreshadowing to draw in the reader.
Make sure to check out poets.orgfor more information!
Poetic DNA
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes like a storyteller who speaks in metaphor toward the light.
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Poems tagged with “elegy” — a theme central to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's work.
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