Evangeline and Selected Tales and Poems [Mass Market Paperback]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Author), Edward M. Cifelli Ph.D. (Preface), Horace Gregory (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005

Distinguished poet Horace Gregory has selected thirty-seven of Longfellow's most enduring poems for this edition, the only paperback of Longfellow's poetry in print.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was the most popular and admired American poet of the nineteenth century. Born in Portland, Maine, and educated at Bowdoin College, Longfellow’s ambition was always to become a writer; but until mid-life his first profession was the teaching rather than the production of literature, at his alma mater (1829-35) and then at Harvard (1836-54). His teaching career was punctuated by two extended study-tours of Europe, during which Longfellow made himself fluent in all the major Romance and Germanic languages. Thanks to a fortunate marriage and the growing popularity of his work, from his mid-thirties onwards Longfellow, ensconced in a comfortable Cambridge mansion, was able to devote an increasingly large fraction of his energies to the long narrative historical and mythic poems that made him a household word, especially Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863, 1872, 1873). Versatile as well as prolific, Longfellow also won fame as a writer of short ballads and lyrics, and experimented in the essay, the short story, the novel, and the verse drama. Taken as a whole, Longfellow’s writings show a breadth of literary learning, an understanding of western languages and cultures, unmatched by any American writer of his time.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451529650
• ISBN-13: 978-0451529657
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great anthology of a true poet's work., May 2, 2000

By 

Dr. Big Balls (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evangeline and Selected Tales and Poems (Signet classics) (Paperback)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is perhaps the greatest rhymester to have ever lived. His endless rhymes almost seem to stay in one's mind, refusing to go. And this edition of his collected poetry just shows Longfellow at his best.

This here is poetry that - though over a hundred years old - is still fresh and alive with vigor. The poems tell tales of men and women, of birds and beast, and of gods and demigods (such as found in The Song of Hiawatha) in such magnificent form that it isn't a wonder why Longfellow was known to be the greatest American poet of his time.

"A poem should not mean but be," Archibald MacLeish wrote in "Ars Poetica." These poems are not intricate, and they're not incomprehensible, and they're definitely not senseless nor pointless; they are timeless, rhetoric voices of literature that tell so much . . . of so much.

And besides, how much times do we come across a poet who does not want to talk about how he feels and his emotions? It seems to be all that poets want to write about. It's good to sometimes read poems that simply want to tell stories and not what the Soul, or the Heart, or the Mind feels. Those things can be nice, but can make one ponder more than he or she should.

Another thing that will become apparent to the reader of this book is that Longfellow was a keen observer of people. In these poems, he writes about them very well. "The Village Blacksmith," for example, is a brilliant poem that tells of one ordinary man with an ordinary occupation: being a blacksmith. It's not of some Don Juan, or Rob Roy, or Casanova that in real life are as scarce as an honest politician. The story of the man in the poem - how he toils, and mourns, and triumphs, and suffers - is one that anyone can relate to.

It is even possible to find comfort in these poems that simply tell stories and not of emotional issues. Also, as I aforementioned, the iambic tales will stay in your mind as you might find it hard to forget them. It is probably the simplicity of these poems that make them so easy to memorize, and are probably what made Longfellow great.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Virtues and Faults of an American Poet, October 9, 2008

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evangeline and Selected Tales and Poems (Mass Market Paperback)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was not a great poet, and his poetry is not particularly profound. But he was a good poet. His verse displays intelligence and sometimes emotional power. Here is a fairly representative collection of thirty-seven poems by Longfellow that allow us to observe him at his best and at his worst, but with the good pieces far outweighing the bad.

Two faults of Longfellow that have been frequently cited by modern readers are a tendency to be overly sentimental and a tendency to moralize. You can see both of these traits in the last four verses of "The Village Blacksmith". Similarly, "Seaweed" (not in this collection) begins with some absolutely beautiful descriptive imagery and then tapers off with three rather tedious didactic verses.

But some qualifications should be made. "Psalm of Life" is purely didactic-- a sermon from begining to end. But a lively verse form and a series of snappy lines and images save the day. "The Wreck of the Hesperus" contains a moral in the last two lines of the poem: "Christ save us from a death like this/ On the reefs of Norman's Woe". But it is done so smoothly that it seems a natural part of the ballad. Not all moralizing by Longfellow is trite, superficial, or platitudinous.

Similarly, some efforts to appeal to emotion succeed. There is the crisp excitement of "Paul Revere's Ride," and the quiet nostalgia of "My Lost Youth." There is the dignified grief for the death of a fellow writer in "Hawthorne," and the powerful feelings of grief for the death of his wife in "The Cross of Snow". I personally find "The Children's Hour" to be nausiously cute, but I suppose that there are many who will love its humor. I did like the relaxed feel of "The Day is Done," though I confess that its last verse reminded me of a parody-- Longfellow is easy to parody-- that I learned as a child:

An Arab stood on a vending machine,
In the light of the lingering day.
A counterfeit penny he put in the slot,
And silently stole a weigh.

Longfellow's long poems are fairly well represented in this collection. It contains the complete texts of "Evangeline" and "The Courtship of Miles Standish". In addition, there are six selections from "The Song of Hiawatha" and two selections from "The Saga of King Olaf". I would have liked to have seen a few more selections from "King Olaf," which I believe is one of Lonfellow's very best poems-- and also one of his strangest. But on the balance, this is not a bad selection for modern readers.

Part of the appeal of this book lies in the extra features that it offers. There is a short story by Longfellow that reminds me a bit of the Alfred Hitchcock movie, _The Trouble with Harry_. See what you think. In addition, there are three critical essays (by Horace Gregory, Van Wyck Brooks, and Norman Holmes Pearson) and a parody of "Hiawatha" by Lewis Carroll.

Altogether, an excellent introductory collection to a solid American poet. You are likely to reread these pieces as if you are encountering old friends who have given you comfort and pleasure in the past. But don't expect to reread them with radically new insights over and over. With Longfellow, what you see on a first reading is what you will get forever after.