American Literature

Module 7: Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Topic: A Psalm of Life (poem)

Sources: Encyclopedia

             Literature of the World

             www.literature.com

Objective: At the end of this module the students are expected to:

1.            Understand unfamiliar words;

2.            Appreciate poetry;

3.            Comprehend the message conveyed in the poem.

Author’s Background

                Henry Wordsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine. He was the son of Stephen and Zilpah. He went to school when he was three years old. From the beginning, it was evident that the young Henry was to be drawn to writing and the sound of words. His mother, brothers and sisters read aloud to him. Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” was a favorite among the books he read but the book which influenced him most was Washington’s Irving’s “Sketch Book”. In May, 1826, he set out for Europe to turn himself into a scholar and a linguist.

                As a writer, Longfellow is probably the best loved among American poets during his lifetime since his poetry had the gift of easy rhyme. He wrote poetry with natural grace and melody that’s why his rhyme and meter cling to the readers’ mind. He has been called America’s Household poet. He wrote about theme which appeals to all kinds of people. His poems are easily understood and they get into the consciousness of those who read them because in them are joy, optimism and faith in the goodness of life and God which evoke immediate response in the emotions of his readers. He died on March 24, 1882.

                Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow was a powerful figure in the cultural life of nineteenth century America. Born in 1807, he had become a national literary figure by the 1850s and a world-famous personality by the time of his death in 1882

Henry's grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth (1748-1829), was a Revolutionary War general who later served seven terms in the United States Congress. The family home in Portland was built for Peleg in 1785-6.

Father Stephen Longfellow (1776-1849) was a lawyer and legislator who helped found many of Maine's early cultural institutions, including the Maine Historical Society (1822). Henry's mother and early encourager was Zilpah Wadsworth Longfellow (1778-1851), direct descendant of Plymouth's John and Priscilla Alden, and a woman of learning, wit, and liberal religious convictions.

Longfellow attended Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, where he met Nathaniel Hawthorne, his lifelong friend and literary colleague. After graduation in 1825 and three years of touring and study in Europe, he assumed the professorship of modern languages — then a relatively new field — at Bowdoin.

His publishing record (six foreign language textbooks in as many years) finally earned him a similar post at Harvard in 1834, beginning his long association with the city of Cambridge.

Longfellow was a devoted husband and father with a keen feeling for the pleasures of home. But his marriages ended in sadness and tragedy — the first to Mary Potter, of Portland, who died in 1835; the second to Fanny Appleton — the great love of his life and the mother of his six children — who died of burns from a terrible accident in 1861.

A deep nostalgia for his life with Fanny colored the rest of Longfellow's life. Longfellow published his first poem at age thirteen in the Portland Evening Gazette — a precocious sign of an astounding literary career as editor, anthologist, translator, playwright, novelist, and, above all, poet. His many published works sold in phenomenal numbers and multiple editions.

Most important are Ballads and Other Poems (1841), Poems on Slavery (1844), Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1867), and Keramos (1878).

One of Longfellow's favorite metaphors is the backward glance. People in the present look back into their distant pasts and make a discovery. What had once been history — political, conflicted, sad, and bloody — could now be seen as imaginative myth: ordered, noble, and a source of strength. Longfellow wrote for a young nation ready to make this backward glance.

The Indian, the Puritan, the Acadian had all, seemingly, sacrificed their identities on America's stage. In return they would become our originating legends. It was Longfellow's genius and unique opportunity that supplied his country with its mythic past. He did so in a supple lucid verse: moody, melodic, and filled with moral tenderness. For this he was loved.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers

Life is but and empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow,

Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, thou stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart of any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

Activity: Vocabulary. Give the meaning of the italicized words:

1. mournful members                                   

2. dead that slumbers                                   

3. life is earnest                                               

4. time is fleeting                                            

5. muffled drums                                            

6. bivouac of life

7. in the strife

8. lives sublime

9. life’s solemn main

10. forlorn brother

Discussion:

1.            What is a psalm?

2.            What is it usually about?

3.            What does the term “grave” represent? If the grave is not life’s goal, what then is its goal?

4.            Why are words Art, Time, Future, Past and Present capitalized? What do they symbolize?

5.            In the fourth stanza, what is the person afraid of?

6.            Discuss the connotative meanings of the following lines:

a.            Footprints on the sands of time

b.            Seeing, shall take heart again

c.             Learn to labor and wait

7.            According to the poet, what are we supposed to do as we go on living?

8.            What significant lessons can be gleaned from the poem?

Application: Choose a song that you consider the most meaningful to you and to which you can relate. Explain why you picked the song and how relevant it is to your life.

Blogger Insight:

                Upon reading the poem, I have come to a deep realization that each and everyone of us has a different perspective of what life is really all about.

                You know, life is full of struggles, trials, problems and worries but do not fear and do not give in to them because there is a God that is greater than all. Life is a gift of God though. When He made man he breathe unto him life; and man became a living soul. 

                One thing I know, life is uncertain—you do not know what lies ahead but death is certain—you may not know when but it will surely come to each and everyone of us. The Bible says, “life is like a vapor that appeareth for a liitle while and then vanisheth away.”