on fellow ous L g ulletinH e Volume No. A Newsletter of the Friends of the Longfellow House and the National Park Service December The Emperor and the Poet: LongfellowB House’s Brazilian Connection t Brazil’s Independence Day celebra- Ambassador Costa went on to cite Dom Using Longfellow’s published letters Ation on September , , Ambas- Pedro II‘s long correspondence with and the House archives, Jim Shea sador Mauricio Eduardo Cortes Costa, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow confirmed that on June , Consul General of Brazil in Boston, and his visit to the poet’s Dom Pedro II dined with bestowed upon Boston’s Mayor Thomas house in . Henry W. Longfellow and Menino the “Medal Order of the South- This story has recently friends at what was then ern Cross, Rank of Commander.” The been pieced together known as Craigie House. medal was created by Brazil’s first emperor, through a collaboration In his journal Longfel- Dom Pedro I, in , as he wrote, to “ac- between members of the low wrote: “Dom Pedro knowledge the relevant services rendered to National Park Service II, Emperor of Brazil, the empire by my most loyal subjects, civil and the Brazilian Con- dined with us. The servants, and foreign dignitaries, and as a sulate. In August Mar- other guests were Ralph token of my highest esteem.” cilio Farias, Cultural Waldo Emerson, Oliver In his address at the ceremony at Boston Affairs Advisor at the Wendell Holmes, Louis City Hall, the Ambassador spoke of the Brazilian Consulate in Agassiz, and Thomas Gold ties between Brazil and the U.S., particu- Boston, called Site Manager Appleton. Dom Pedro is the larly between Boston and Brazil: “Boston Jim Shea to verify for the Dom Pedro II, modern Haroun Al Raschid, has been the cultural ‘axis’ of this country, Ambassador’s upcoming speech and is wandering about the great and Brazil’s first contacts with the U.S. honoring Mayor Menino information he world we live in, as simple traveler, and started here. Emperor Dom Pedro II was had uncovered on Emperor Dom Pedro II’s not as King. He is a hearty, genial, noble one of the pioneers in this endeavor.” visit to Henry W. Longfellow at his house. (continued on page ) First New Collection of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Works in 25 Years he most comprehensive volume of collection demonstrates Longfellow’s com- From the vast output of one of the nine- THenry W. Longfellow’s works available mand of virtually every genre of his day: teenth-century’s most prolific writers, in the past twenty-five years was published novel, short story, essay, travel sketch, verse McClatchy, Chancellor of the Academy of in September by the Library of America. play, translation, epic, sonnet, and ballad American Poets and a member of the Amer- Announced in the Boston Globe and greeted among them. ican Academy of Arts and Letters, chose for with lively discussions on Na- this volume fifteen translations tional Public Radio, the publi- of poems (a genre rarely in- cation of the -page anno- cluded in Longfellow collec- tated collection, Longfellow, Poems tions) and poems published and Other Writings, was also cele- by Longfellow during his life- brated with a gala book party on time. He also presents selections the Longfellow House lawn on from the long poem “Christus: Sunday September th. A Mystery” and from the verse Edited by distinguished poet drama “Michael Angelo,”still in and critic J.D. McClatchy, the manuscript at the time of new volume “offers a full-scale Longfellow’s death in , as literary portrait of our country’s well as Longfellow’s novel greatest popular poet, revealing “Kavanagh, A Tale,”a study of the range and genial vigor of a small town life and literary body of work ripe for rediscov- ambition praised by Emerson as ery,” the publisher states. This Robert Pinsky, Sue Miller, and David Ferry at the Longfellow book party (continued on page ) ᳚ New Collection of Longfellow’s Works (continued from page ) an important contribution to the develop- cess of that lesson was clear in his reading so ment of American fiction. compelling that at its conclusion shouts of ሖሗመ The six-page table of contents invites “Bravo!” burst from the audience. On behalf the reader to enjoy the pleasures of the of the Friends of the Longfellow House, Friends of the Longfellow House familiar—“A Psalm of Life,” “The Court- Marilyn Richardson closed the program Board of Directors ship of Miles Standish,” and Evangeline with one of a series of anti-slavery poems, Barclay Henderson, President Edith Hollmann Bowers, Vice President —and the less well known—elegant trans- “The Witnesses,” and, at J.D. McClatchy’s Robert Mitchell, Clerk lations, passionate anti-slavery poems, and request, read the cherished evocation of life Charlotte Cleveland, Treasurer works of literary criticism. The book ends in the House, “The Children’s Hour.” Frances Ackerly with a section of informative notes on McClatchy, in introducing the after- Peter Ambler Longfellow’s life and work. noon’s program, described the phenomenal Hans-Peter Biemann To celebrate the publication of this new reach of Longfellow’s influence. “Monarch Gene A. Blumenreich collection, hundreds of listeners enjoyed a and manservant, curate and carpenter, the Polly Bryson series of readings by latter-day Cantabri- whole world read Longfellow. He outsold Dick Dober gians as familiar as the Longfellow poems Browning and Tennyson. In the White Nancy Fryberger they brought to life on a golden Cambridge House, Lincoln asked to have Longfellow’s Victor Gulotta afternoon. The Reverend Peter Gomes, after poems recited to him, and wept.” An out- Abigail Housen Diana der Hovanessian commenting on the Longfellow family con- standing scholar as well as a prodigious Carol Johnson nection with Harvard’s Apppleton Chapel, author, Longfellow traveled widely, mas- Marilyn Richardson read the much-loved “The Village Black- tered eleven languages, and as a professor Lynne Spencer smith.” Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Modern Languages at Harvard Univer- Susan Wood Justin Kaplan read the harrowing account of sity introduced Dante, Molière, and “The Wreck of the Hesperus,”and poet and Goethe into the curriculum. Certainly he Advisory Board translator David Ferry presented two medi- left us phrases that have taken on lives of Ruth Butler tative pieces, “In the Churchyard at Cam- their own: “the patter of little feet,” “ships LeRoy Cragwell bridge” and “The Fire of Drift-Wood.” that pass in the night,” and “into each life Diana Korzenik Richard Nylander In hearing each poem discussed briefly some rain must fall,” and, of course, there Stephen D. Pratt and then read aloud, the audience was is the once-learned, never-forgotten cadence Marc Shell clearly captivated by the depth, passion, and of The Song of Hiawatha. Charles Sullivan immediacy of these works long dismissed With his reputation eclipsed but never Lowell A. Warren, Jr. as charming but sentimental rhymes from really extinguished, McClatchy told the Eileen Woodford an era of sensibilities quite different from audience, Longfellow was dismissed as our own. This was particularly the case with mawkish by his grandnephew Ezra Pound, Newsletter Committee novelist Sue Miller’s reading of “The Day but championed by the likes of Robert Marilyn Richardson, Editor is Done,” followed by Longfellow’s stark, Frost. As the editor of the new Longfellow Glenna Lang, Designer James M. Shea heart-broken poem on his wife Fanny’s collection concluded in his introduction at tragic early death, “The Cross of Snow.” the House book party and later published Longfellow’s wide-ranging literary inter- in the New York Times Book Review: q ests as translator, critic, and anthologist Rereading his best lyrics, one is struck by were evoked by former Poet Laureate the twilit, ghostly melancholy of his lost National Park Service Robert Pinsky reading from his own recent paradises… And the grand narrative poems Myra Harrison, Superintendent translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, a work of his “Tales of a Wayside Inn” sequence James M. Shea, Site Manager that Longfellow translated in the s. have a dramatic thrust and vivid portraiture Paul Blandford, Museum Educator Robert Reich recalled his elementary that can evoke one’s first, enthralled experi- Liza Stearns, Education Specialist school recitation of “Paul Revere’s Ride” ences with stories, the high adventurous Kelly Fellner, Education and Visitor Services Janice Hodson, Museum Curator and the teacher who urged him to declaim romance of those books that helped shape Jude Pfister, Museum Specialist “with energy, Bobby, with energy!”The suc- our desires and still abide in our memories. Anita Israel, Archives Specialist Emo Dewitt, Horticulturalist Ed Bacigalupo, Chief of Maintenance Henry Longfellow’s letter to his brother Samuel Longfellow, January , : Pat Laffey, Facility Manager …I am publishing a book, a collection of translations from various European languages, to the number of , the translations by various hands-and a few of my own. Have you translated any- Printed by Newprint Offset, Waltham, Mass. thing yet? Don’t neglect the opportunity of learning the language thoroughly. You ought to speak it muito bem (very well) by this time. How much longer shall you stay in Fayal? Note: In , Longfellow’s anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe, with selections from ማሜምሞ nearly four hundred poets, helped to introduce foreign literature into the United States. ᳚ Interview with a Friend…Meet the Brazilian Consul Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil was a his stay. Ralph Waldo Emerson was here Isabella. Her father was away on a trip to child when the Portuguese royal family fled that evening, along with Oliver Wendell Portugal, and she was the regent during Napoleon in and moved their entire Holmes, Thomas Gold Appleton (the that period.