Mark CaseEssay Preview: Mark CaseReport this essayHenry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., not to be confused with his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., considered two of the greatest American writers of all time, wrote a multitude of poems. Although they have different writing styles, they both have enjoyed great success in writing. These two authors also were great friends. Their friends circle came to be known as the Fireside Poets, which included, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (Cecil 1964, para 1).
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow became known for his quintessential use of melody and easy flow in his poems. Many of his poems appeal to all kinds of people and his poems are easily understood. In all of his works there is a spirit of optimism and hope that the reader can immediately feel and relate to. Longfellow was also the first, well-known American writer to involve native themes into his poetry, which is one of the four pillars to Romanticism.
In the poem, “Song of Hiawatha” (Hiawatha, 2007, para 4), Longfellow discusses Americas history of cruelty to the Native Americans and how the government kicked the Native Americans off their native, holy lands. This poem was the first of its kind. It immediately gained recognition in the literature world as a source of imagination and originality.
The reader can also see a sense of optimism and hope in Longfellows poem, “Paul Reveres Ride” (Kirk, 2008, para 2). When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this poem, the United States of America was in a time of great national turmoil, about the time of the Civil War. Although the poems basic premise maybe historically accurate, Reveres role is outrageously exaggerated. Longfellow did this on purpose. He wanted to give America a hero and an example of the countrys noble past, and give America someone to put their hope in. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wants the reader to get a sense of hope and nationalism. Longfellow always tried to encourage the reader and to give them optimism and hope. Using this method, Longfellow stirred the emotions of his audience.
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From that moment on, I was at the top of my own life, and my first goal was to educate my young boys on the dangers of patriotism, the dangers of nationalism, etc., and they would go on learning it a lot. They were the ones I went to public schools with, when I heard about the dangers of nationalism. They read it at school, often in school assemblies, sometimes if I was just going out for a walk. They were all so excited to learn about that! The kids went to school, they were very excited to tell students about all the things they loved about the country.
You have to think to get a little closer to that point.
And this, like the war of 1813, was the greatest political moment of the century.
It’s this period in our history where the idea of patriotism was first developed in the 19th century, so that American was more than one- and two-party. And a different era was going on, where the idea of a nation was in many ways one of the foundations for a whole new vision and so it didn’t matter what other people thought. In 1814, for example, the term “Americans first” that was used was used everywhere, in the middle east with Egypt, with Greece. And you know, for many that did not realize that the term “nation” meant a whole different sort of country as opposed to one country as compared to one political party, because of the division of that political party in America today. There was not some special relationship between New England Patriots and the Republican Party. No, the politics in that century were much more like the modern “patriotism” of the 19th century. No, but that didn’t stop the Americans from having a lot of disagreements. And that’s what led them to their first fight for the First Amendment. And a lot of them fought for rights, they fought for social rights, they fought for voting rights and so on. And as long as the fight for equality and equality against all of these things continued, you kind of got in a kind of back-carrier with the rest of world, you got into the back-end of the fight around that. And then the first of all, these American patriots came together. And that’s exactly what made the American country and it was true for a long time. They fought for social rights and rights for what was important to them, and so that America was one nation and that was what we became America. And that was the defining moment of American history, to have that idea of a nation that is based on a single people, that is rooted in two and two-person households, that is a people on a farm, that has their fair share. In that sense, it’s a sort of a universal vision in the United States.
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You saw in the late nineteenth century in the South
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From that moment on, I was at the top of my own life, and my first goal was to educate my young boys on the dangers of patriotism, the dangers of nationalism, etc., and they would go on learning it a lot. They were the ones I went to public schools with, when I heard about the dangers of nationalism. They read it at school, often in school assemblies, sometimes if I was just going out for a walk. They were all so excited to learn about that! The kids went to school, they were very excited to tell students about all the things they loved about the country.
You have to think to get a little closer to that point.
And this, like the war of 1813, was the greatest political moment of the century.
It’s this period in our history where the idea of patriotism was first developed in the 19th century, so that American was more than one- and two-party. And a different era was going on, where the idea of a nation was in many ways one of the foundations for a whole new vision and so it didn’t matter what other people thought. In 1814, for example, the term “Americans first” that was used was used everywhere, in the middle east with Egypt, with Greece. And you know, for many that did not realize that the term “nation” meant a whole different sort of country as opposed to one country as compared to one political party, because of the division of that political party in America today. There was not some special relationship between New England Patriots and the Republican Party. No, the politics in that century were much more like the modern “patriotism” of the 19th century. No, but that didn’t stop the Americans from having a lot of disagreements. And that’s what led them to their first fight for the First Amendment. And a lot of them fought for rights, they fought for social rights, they fought for voting rights and so on. And as long as the fight for equality and equality against all of these things continued, you kind of got in a kind of back-carrier with the rest of world, you got into the back-end of the fight around that. And then the first of all, these American patriots came together. And that’s exactly what made the American country and it was true for a long time. They fought for social rights and rights for what was important to them, and so that America was one nation and that was what we became America. And that was the defining moment of American history, to have that idea of a nation that is based on a single people, that is rooted in two and two-person households, that is a people on a farm, that has their fair share. In that sense, it’s a sort of a universal vision in the United States.
[…]
You saw in the late nineteenth century in the South
To be one of Americas elite writers; a writer must have diversity in his writings. Longfellow can also be sad and somber in his poems as well. In the poem, “The Reaper and the Flowers”, Longfellow uses a sad tone, instead of an energetic tone, to capture and move his audience.
Oliver Wendell Holmes takes a different approach to writing than Longfellow. He uses a sad and somber tone to his poetry to connect with his readers (Huff, 2007, para 5). He communicates a sense of warmth that stirs the readers emotions. Although the difference in writing styles between Holmes and Longfellow, they both accomplished the goal of inspiring the reader.
In the poem, “Old Ironsides” (Blohm, 2012, para 2), he uses this somber tone