At the height of his fame, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was not just beloved by readers and highly respected by legendary poets of his time on both sides of the Atlantic, but had accomplished perhaps the rarest thing in the world of a writer of his period or any period to follow: making a comfortable living off nothing more than the income derived from his verse. (For the record, his revenue was not limited to just writing income, but the very fact that it nearly brought him as much money per year as teaching at Harvard is almost inconceivable). Flash-forward just a few decades following Longfellow’s death and his poetry was already being relegated to elementary school curricula, having been ostracized from serious academic scholarship. The poems did not change and there was no attendant scandal to cause Longfellow’s status to take such a notable nosedive, so what’s the deal? In a word: Modernism.
It was more than just one literary movement that perhaps irreparably (though perhaps not) damaged the reputation of the man who remains the only American writer honored with a bust at Poet’s Corner within Westminster Abbey. In fact, to suggest that it was Modernism which brought the Longfellow legacy crashing down is perhaps to give that movement too much credit. If you really want to know what the primary difference between the poets who took Longfellow’s place at the top of the heap and the man himself really is, just read his famous long ballads about Hiawatha or Paul Revere or any of his numerous shorter lyrical verse.
Modernism is what killed Longfellow for consideration as a serious poet, but it was his truly extraordinary gift for rhyme and utter mastery of meter that took him off college campuses and sent him into a timeout in elementary school. Nearly every American student attending public school up to the 1970’s probably had to stand up and recite one of Longfellow’s poets at one time or another. Longfellow is the preferred poet for teaching young children recitation because narrative tales are easier to recall due to the rhythm which very often seems almost like reading Dr. Seuss. Not to take anything away from Seuss, of course, but here’s the deal that makes this comparison quite unreal: Seuss could make the rhyme by using entirely made-up words when he needed whereas Longfellow’s long, intricate rhythms which more often than not perfectly combined like sounds at the end of a line relied upon actual existing and appropriate verbiage. Consider this except from “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” for instance:
“Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.”
While definitely subject to lapsing into the sing-song rhythm which was to become his downfalls, this example is representative of Longfellow’s deceptive sophistication. Consider that it is not merely an A-A-B-B or an A-B-A-B rhyme such as would be found in most juvenile verse. Here is a rhyme scheme of A-B-B-C-A-B-C. That insertion of the extra “B” rhyme serves to break down the tendency toward a sing-song rhythm and ending the verse with a repetition minus the extra “B” line reveals a more sophisticated artistry. Longfellow’s poetry often plays around with rhyme scheme like this and in the pre-Modernism world it was appreciated it precisely for its innovative use.
The Post-Modernism world (which is not to be confused with the Postmodern world) also recognizes the innovation, but it hardly matters because by the end of the 1920’s rhyme was almost dead in poetry. To be a serious poet meant to be experimental and experimentation is handcuffed by an adherence to trying for the rhyme. (Not really, but that is what the scholars and academics came to believe and—worse—the poets seeking to impress them.) When you really think about it, however, would it not be more difficult to experiment while working without a net than working with one? Writing poetry that does not rhyme allows for a freedom that the poem which must rhyme simply does not.
Experimentation for the Modernists has to do with symbol, images and meaning, but the truth is that Longfellow was in his own way—for his own time—quite an experimental poet. Consider, for example, that Longfellow used dactylic hexameter to write his first great American epic, “Evangeline.” This particular meter is often referred to Homeric meter because it is the one which the legendary ancient writer chose when producing his great epics Iliad and the Odyssey. Virgin’s Aeneid also uses this particular meter which has never been considered appropriate for use with the English language even by most of the greatest British poets. In addition to the choice of meter, the choice of content is also the sign of an experimental poet. For one thing, it is an epic tale set in Canada and America. For another, it features average people rather than mythic heroes. Most astonishing of all, perhaps, is that its title and main character is a woman!
Longfellow would go on to carve a name for himself as the foremost chronicler of American myth through verse, essentially creating a genre which simply did not exist and those rare examples which preceded him were received nowhere near the attention and acclaim awarded Longfellow. If nearly single-handedly creating and defining a genre of poetry is not as experimental as creating a body of verse that never rhymes, what else would be?
Longfellow also stepped outside the conventional wisdom of being merely a sentimental American myth-maker. Sentimental is a common word found in scholarly attacks upon his poetry and there is a certain validity to the charge. At the same time, anyone who finds the closing stanza of “The Day is Done” to be dripping with treacly sentiment should perhaps volunteer of psychological examination:
“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”
If that brooding and darkly contemplative conclusion is not unsentimental enough, there is another break from the conventional view of Longfellow that puts the lie to this idea that he is a total lightweight capable only of producing verse fit merely for elementary school recitation competitions.
“How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'er the sea — that desert desolate —
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?”
These lines from “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” can effectively be situated in opposition to the sentimentality about America. True, the “Christian hate” to which he refers is specifically addressing the anti-Semitism that was pervasive in Europe and the implicit promise is that America can be a beacon of hope for Jewish refugees, but lying just beneath that is another implicit implication: American was founded as a Christian city on the hill and as a descendant of Puritans, Longfellow was more than familiar with the deep-seated and often intensely ingrained religious intolerance of Americans. To suggest that his poem comes anywhere near to suggesting that Jews arriving from Europe can arrive in America with any expectation that they have left anti-Semitism behind would be as foolish as suggesting that all his poetry is overly sentimental.
Literary appreciation often moves in cycles. What was popular once almost always experiences a dip when something new and innovative comes along and then, once enough time has passed, a newfound respect apart from mere popularity is usually awarded those few artists whose work truly transcend their period. That critical reappraisal of Longfellow has already begun, but is slow in coming. He will likely never recover the status as America’s Poet that he once enjoyed and, in all fairness, he probably does not deserve to be. Even those 19th century peers which he once transcended in his own time seem unlikely to be pushed aside: Whitman and Dickinson are not likely to lose their place in college curricula to make room against for Longfellow. Since his own fall, poets of his age who were somewhat or completely ignored have also since proven worthy of greater consideration: Herman Melville, to name just the most obvious.
One day Longfellow will again be recognized as not just a master of rhyme, but a poet who is in own manner was truly breathtaking in his willingness to experiment. If the time was ever ripe for Longfellow to make it back into the ranks of America’s world class poets, it would be the Age of Rap. While few legendary 20th century poets seem to owe any debt to Longfellow, he may finally enjoy revenge on the decision to make him the unofficial poet laureate of elementary school. Even rappers who dropped out before high school doubtlessly were influenced by his a talent for rhyme that would have made him a rap legend under different circumstances.
