Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27th,
1807 in Portland, Maine. He was the second oldest out of eight. Ever since he
was a kid, Henry loves to learning. He knew the alphabet by the age of three
and went to a private academy with his older brother. Henry decided to start
writing with his friend, William Browne at childhood. At the age of thirteen,
Longfellow published his first poem. He titled it “The Battle of Lovell’s
Pond,” and no one knew that Henry was the one that wrote it. One night, while
at a friend’s house, he overheard some adults talking about how bad the poem
was. This obviously made Henry quite upset with himself. Despite the let down,
he didn’t let this stop him and his literature inspirations. Henry went to
college in Maine the same year as his brother Stephen, even though he was a few
years younger. He studied abroad and graduated in 1825.
In 1831, Henry married Mary Storer Potter. Unfortunately,
Mary died while he was in Harvard University teaching. Soon after Mary’s death,
Henry meets another woman. Her name was Frances Appleton, and they were married
in 1843.Frances set their house on fire in 1861 and died the next day.
Longfellow passed away March 24th, 1882 due to peritonitis.
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the tissue in the inner walls of the abdomen
and covers the abdominal organs.
During Henry’s life, he wrote plenty of poems. He never
stopped writing until he passed away in 1882. He also wrote plenty epic poems.
Epic poems tell a story that focuses on uncommon things that would happen in
live. One of these poems is Kavanagh,
which had a popular nationalistic poem, “The Building of the Ship” contained in
it. One of Longfellow’s major projects was The
Christus: A Mystery. This piece was finished in 1872 and came in three parts.
The parts dealt with Puritan themes and the life of Jesus Christ. He wrote
poems on various topics, like slavery, Hiawatha, and more. After the death of
his second wife, he put most of his focus into translating Dante’s Divine Comedy, which was published in
1867.
Walt Whitman was born on May 31st, 1819 In Long
Island. He was the second oldest of nine children. He had a formal education
until 1830, and immediately loved to read. In 1836, he started teaching in Long
Island and was the founder of the Long-Islander.
Soon after he started teaching, Whitman decided that he was interested in
journalism. Whitman dedicated all his time to journalism. He was never married,
and did nothing but write poetry. He wanted to make sure that nothing was in
the way of his writing.
Whitman wrote a lot of poetry in his weekly newspaper, but
one of his biggest works was the Leaves of Grass. This was a three edition
piece that he spent a lot of time on. The first edition of this piece did not
go as well as Whitman expected. Although not a lot of people liked it, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, a very famous Romantic poet, thought of it like this: "I find it
the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet
contributed.… I greet you at the beginning of a great career." The second
edition of this piece had twenty more poems than the first edition.
Unfortunately, the second edition sold over just as well as the first. Whitman
did not let this bring him down. The third edition added another one hundred
forty-six new poems.
Longfellow and
Whitman have a lot in common. Both were the second oldest in their family and
had a lot of siblings. They both also discovered their love for reading and
writing at a young age. One weird similarity is that their first published
poetry was in the newspaper. This must have been popular in that time period.
When it comes to their life, the major difference between the two men is their
marital status. Longfellow had two wives, who both died. Whitman, however, did
not have any spouses and focused entirely on his writing. Both men are writers
in the Romantic time period and have a few major pieces to their writing.