The members of Brandywine Books wholeheartedly support Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As Frank Wilson notes, he’s famous again and rightly so. From the Smithsonian:
Yet in the light of his 200th birthday this month, Longfellow is looking fresh once again. A Library of America edition of his selected writings, published in 2000, has gone through four printings, with close to 37,000 copies in print. To celebrate his bicentennial, the U.S. Postal Service has issued a commemorative stamp—the second to bear his likeness; Herman Melville is the only writer similarly honored. Longfellow was not a “stuffy Victorian,” says Christoph Irmscher, curator of a bicentennial exhibit of rare books and other artifacts at Harvard University’s Houghton Library. Rather, he was a highly motivated writer who “worked hard to professionalize the business of literature and to earn his status as America’s first—and most successful to date—celebrity poet.” In his ambition, in his approach to fame and in his connection with his audience, Longfellow can seem, even now, quite contemporary.
I think I’ve related this story before, but I’ll do it again. In an interview with Mars Hill Audio Journal, poet Dana Gioia said he had concealed his poetry writing from his co-workers until a certain bit of publicity made it impossible. Once the people he worked with knew he was a poet, some of them started quoting poetry to him as they walked into his office. Gioia said they frequently quoted lines from Longfellow poems, probably learned in school. Despite academic contempt, Longfellow has been, perhaps always, an American favorite.
I’d like to note that Longfellow retold the Saga of Olaf Trygvesson (largely the same material covered in my novel THE YEAR OF THE WARRIOR) in TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN. It’s stirring, vivid stuff, and I used to have large sections memorized.
Yes! Not too long ago I read Hiawatha (to one of my daughters, who liked it) and last year I delved into a fair bit of Longfellow’s poetry. I enjoyed it.
I haven’t got around to reading it yet, but if you have access to the Times Literary Supplement, a long piece on Longfellow led off the issue – – a favorable treatment.
Makes you think the exhaustion of modern poetry is being recognized. (I assume it is. Who reads it?)
But Edmund Spenser and The Faerie Queene, now. Ah! If you are a little wary, get hold of Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves, Roy Maynard’s lightly modernized text. A few of his copious notes are too cutesy, but here is a readaer-very-friendly edition. I am having my British lit students read it. They seem to be responding fairly well.
Fierce Wars is just Book I of the FQ, I should add. I have read the whole FQ, most of it two or three times. I use the Penguin Classics edition.
I’ve wanted to read The Faerie Queene all the way through for a long time, but I thought I had read part of Book 1. Maybe not. I read a story about a knight and dwarf who encountered personifications of the seven deadly sins.