Henry Wadsworth Longfellow For the CSET English Exam

If you are studying for the CSET English exam, you need to study some of the icons in American literature. One such iconic figure is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. No CSET practice test will be in this lesson. In this lesson you will read a little background on Longfellow, watch a video documentary, and then read three of his most famous works: The Song Of Hiawatha (an excerpt only), Paul Revere’s Ride, and Evangeline (an excerpt only).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet who wrote The Song of Hiawatha, Paul Revere’s Ride and Evangeline.

He was one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets (the Fireside Poets (also known as the Schoolroom or Household Poets) were a group of 19th-century American poets from New England. The group is usually described as comprising Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who were the first American poets whose popularity rivaled that of British poets).

There are two reasons for the popularity and significance of Longfellow’s poetry. First, he had the gift of easy rhyme. He wrote poetry as a bird sings, with natural grace and melody. Read or heard once or twice, his rhyme and meters cling to the mind long after the sense may be forgotten.

Second, Longfellow wrote on obvious themes which appeal to all kinds of people. His poems are easily understood; they sing their way into the consciousness of those who read them. Above all, there is a joyousness in them, a spirit of optimism and faith in the goodness of life which evokes immediate response in the emotions of his readers.

As Roberto Rabe writes, “At the beginning of the 19th century, America was a stumbling babe as far as a culture of its own was concerned. The people of America had spent their years and their energies in carving a habitation out of the wilderness and in fighting for independence. Literature, art, and music came mainly from Europe and especially from England. Americans owe a great debt to Longfellow because he was among the first of American writers to use native themes. He wrote about the American scene and landscape, the American Indian (‘Song of