英语论文网

birthday in 1882 was celebrated across the country. But his health was failing, and he died the following month, on March 24.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a commanding figure in the cultural life of nineteenth-century America. He became a national literary figure by the 1850s and a world-famous personality by the time of his death in 1882. He was a traveler, a linguist, and a romantic who identified with the great traditions of European literature and thought. At the same time, he was rooted in American life and history, which charged his imagination with untried themes and made him ambitious for success.
1.2 Features of Longfellow’s Poetic Works

    Longfellow was the best-known American poet during the 19th century. His poetry has distinct characteristics. His poetical style is simple, sincere, and Musical. The melody of his poetry is unsurpassed by that of other American authors. Longfellow’s long stay in European led to his mastery of several European languages and a broader knowledge of European literature than most other American literary figures, what’s more, this enabled him to embody in his poetry chief romantic tendencies as humanitarian attitude, love of beauty, love of nature and love for the past. Longfellow was popular because of his high-mindedness, his spiritual aspiration, his refinement of thought, his refinement of manners, and the gentleness, sweetness and purity of his poetry.  Longfellow’s style and subjects were conventional, especially in comparison with those of Whitman or modern writers. He wrote in traditional regular meters and feet and regular rhyming schemes. He wrote poetry as a bird sings, with natural grace and melody. Longfellow did not appeal, as more of his contemporary writers did, for the breaking of American literature from European literature. Usually he wrote about American subjects, but always in European styles. Longfellow wrote on obvious themes which appealed to all kinds of people. His poems were easily understood and they song their way into the consciousness of those who read them. Above all, there was joyousness in them, a spirit of optimism and faith in the goodness of life which evoked immediate response in the emotions of his readers. 

Being a highly learned and cultivated man, and a professor of several languages, Longfellow composed all his works with accurately selected words and delicate expressions. The ideas he expressed were generally simple ones but he expressed them musically and powerfully. The child-like simplicity and detachment from the deep and important problems of contemporary life were perhaps the basic elements of Longfellow’s appeal to the common audience; but on the other hand, they led to a fatal weakness in his work — lack of the depth and insight of a great artist such as Whitman. As a poet, Longfellow failed to reflect in his poetry what he felt personally and what he attained from reading. He enriched his poems with second-hand knowledge. However, in the late 19th century, Longfellow was doubtlessly the most popular American poet and a milestone in the development of American poetry.
 
II. The Reflection of Longfellow’s Outlook in a Psalm of Life and the Tides Rises, the Tide Falls
2.1 The Background and the Meaning of the Two Poems
 2.1.1 The Background of A Psalm of Life
A Psalm of Life was first published in Voice of the Night in the S本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。