Amy BeasleyMrs. Beasley

English II3 May 2012

Early Years

• Born in 1807• Portland, Maine

“North of Boston”• Academic Career• Portland Academy• Bowdoin College• Three additional

years of study abroad in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany

Later Years • Bowdoin faculty • Marries – • Wife dies in child birth • Prose sketches • Professor of French

and Spanish at Harvard University

• Married Frances Appleton

• 6 children

Writing • Much of his poetry was

based on American Legends

- Evangeline (1847)- The Song of Hiawatha

(1855) - Moll Flanders • 1854 resigned from

Harvard and devoted himself to writing full time

Given honorary degrees by Cambridge and Oxford Universities in England Received by Queen Victoria Marble image was unveiled in the Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey

Accomplishments

Interesting Facts

Eighteen years after the death of Longfellow’s wife, he was looking at a book with pictures of the far west and the mountains when he came across a picture much like the one reproduced here. The poem that resulted is "The Cross of Snow," one of his most poignant and touching sonnets.

Longfellow’s wife, Fanny, died tragically. As she was sealing an envelope, her dress caught on fire by the hot candle wax. Longfellow tried to put the flames out and, his face was burned so badly that he grew the familiar long beard to hide the scars.

“The Cross of Snow” In the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face--the face of one long dead- Looks at me from the wall, where round its head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died, and soul

more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight.

There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all the

changing scenes And seasons, changeless since the day

she died.

Personal Reflection Longfellow is one of my

favorite poets. I love mythology, and he incorporates mythology into poems including Hiawatha and Evangeline. I also appreciate the way that Longfellow reveals so much of himself in his writing like in his poem Cross of Snow when he writes about the pain he continues to feel because of the loss of his wife. All in all, he’s a great poet!