A Glimpse of Longfellow

1896

In "A Glimpse of Longfellow," published in one of the magazines, Rev. Minot J. Savage calls him "the most widely read poet of the English-speaking world." This is approximately true, observes the New York World, and the cause for it is found in the poet's universal sympathy with the literature of all times and countries.

He is the most widely read poet of America because of all American poets he read most widely. The extent of his studies is astonishing. In his youth he went deep into the early literature of England, and added to the usual college acquaintance with the classics a knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and literature which did much to insure his success. He went from Saxon to the Scandinavian languages and to old Norse; then to old High German and from that to Italian, making a translation of Dante, which if lacking in the high poetic art of the original verse will always be respectable.

As a result of wide literary sympathies, he was able to appeal to the universal human nature. If he had something of natural provincialism in his youth, his maturity knew no boundary of section or country. His works have been translated into all the principal languages of Europe because by long labor he learned to understand the common humanity that underlies all differences of Nationality.

The central fact of his career was his great capacity for work. It made him the greatest of New England poets and one of the most useful men of his century.