A primer of American literature . e deter-mined to translate the Iliad of Homer. Although,unlike certain other celebrated translators, he wasnot compelled to learn the language, he preparedhimself thoroughly for the task, and published in1869 a version which, notwithstanding the constantagitation in England, for twenty years, of the ques-tion of Homeric translation, has been very gener-ally accepted as a good English Homer. It is inunrhymed heroic pentameter. A similar translationof the Odyssey appeared in 1871. By a fortunatecircumstance, the short period since 1867 has seenthe appearance in
A primer of American literature . e deter-mined to translate the Iliad of Homer. Although,unlike certain other celebrated translators, he wasnot compelled to learn the language, he preparedhimself thoroughly for the task, and published in1869 a version which, notwithstanding the constantagitation in England, for twenty years, of the ques-tion of Homeric translation, has been very gener-ally accepted as a good English Homer. It is inunrhymed heroic pentameter. A similar translationof the Odyssey appeared in 1871. By a fortunatecircumstance, the short period since 1867 has seenthe appearance in America of new versions of theIliad, Odyssey, Divine Comedy, yEneid, and Faust,each of which has at once taken a creditable placeamong translations in English. Of the last threemention will be made under the names of theirrespective translators. II. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was thethird in age of the greater American poets,— Bryantand Emerson having been his seniors, and Whittierten months his junior, though both were born in. X<i< ^A( .^;lvP= «-AX.*9-t^ HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 5 I 1807. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, ofa courtly and well-to-do family. When fourteenyears old, he entered Bowdoin College, where hegraduated in 1825 in the class with NathanielHawthorne. It is a circumstance without precedentthat the two persons who are by many consideredthe first poet arid the first prose writer of the coun-try received their bachelors degree at the sametime and from the same hands. Other members ofthis remarkable class were George B. Cheever, JohnS. C. Abbott, and S. S. Prentiss. William PittFessenden, John P. Hale, and Franklin Pierce werealso in college at the time. Like Bryant, Longfellowat first determined to be a lawyer, but the year aftergraduation, though but nineteen, he was offered theprofessorship of modern languages at Bowdoin, toqualify himself for which position he spent threeyears of study in Europe. From 1829, after hisreturn, un
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectamerica, bookyear1883
