Evangeline
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was an American poet. Born in Portland, Maine, Longfellow excelled in reading and writing from a young age, becoming fluent in Latin as an adolescent and publishing his first poem at the age of thirteen. In 1822, Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and published poems and stories in local magazines and newspapers. Graduating in 1825, Longfellow was offered a position at Bowdoin as a professor of modern languages before embarking on a journey throughout Europe. He returned home in 1829 to begin teaching and working as the college’s librarian. During this time, he began working as a translator of French, Italian, and Spanish textbooks, eventually publishing a translation of Jorge Manrique, a major Castilian poet of the fifteenth century. In 1836, after a period abroad and the death of his wife Mary, Longfellow accepted a professorship at Harvard, where he taught modern languages while writing the poems that would become Voices of the Night (1839), his debut collection. That same year, Longfellow published Hyperion: A Romance, a novel based partly on his travels and the loss of his wife. In 1843, following a prolonged courtship, Longfellow married Fanny Appleton, with whom he would have six children. That decade proved fortuitous for Longfellow’s life and career, which blossomed with the publication of Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), an epic poem that earned him a reputation as one of America’s leading writers and allowed him to develop the style that would flourish in The Song of Hiawatha (1855). But tragedy would find him once more. In 1861, an accident led to the death of Fanny and plunged Longfellow into a terrible depression. Although unable to write original poetry for several years after her passing, he began work on the first American translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy and increased his public support of abolitionism. Both steeped in tradition and immensely popular, Longfellow’s poetry continues to be read and revered around the world.
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Reviews for Evangeline
6 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This review is of this stupid Amazon free Kindle edition, not Longfellow's great poem. THIS EDITION COMPLETELY OMITS THE PRELUDE. The prelude sets the tone for the entire poem, and nicely mirrors the final stanza. Apparently the "group of volunteers" who converted the hard copy to an ebook were a bunch of Philistines who thought that the book's Part the First began at the Roman numeral one, and that the few preceding stanzas were just a bunch of stuff somebody added for no good reason. Well, since this edition is free, I guess one shouldn't expect to receive the complete work. This is so bad because anyone new to poetry might not know the prelude was omitted, and thus be robbed of a slice of Longfellow's genius that goes a long way to making Evangeline the masterpiece that it is. Shame on those volunteers.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe beautiful, lyrical poem about the Acadians after the discovery of America.One of the most beautiful openings in the history of literature:"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring oceanSpeaks, and in the accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.I am certain that many of us here on LT know those words by memory."Evangeline is just a beautiful, lovely poem a little over 100 pages long about love and loss; the searching and finding of it again only to realize it is too late.My copy has been handed down in the family and is a very delicate April, 1908 copy. It was copyrighted in 1900. My grandfather gave it to my father as a young man & my father gave it to me when I graduated from H.S. in 1966. I try to make sure I read this every year.I read this for the first time in the fifth grade and have never forgotten it. I very highly recommended "Evangeline" for anyone who loves poetry and beautifully written prose. I rated it 5 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beautifully illustrated with drawings and paintings from earlier editions, this is a wonderful collectors edition. I recently saw the Charlottetown Centre for the Arts production of the musical version of Evangeline and the story line they used did not always follow the one I thought existed. Thus I read the full poem to check what Longfellow had really written especially the part where the musical suggested Evangeline and Gabriel had been married. They were not married in the poem, just betrothed.The introduction by Fergusson is full of interesting details about why the poem was written and from what sources Longfellow took his geography lessons as he described Evangeline's travels.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Serene, relentless, first published in 1847, ninety-two years after the neutral town of Gran Pre was destroyed, and its inhabitants removed and separated, during the hostilities between new England and new France, in which Acadia was a pawn. The story of a girl separated from her lover in that derangement, grown old looking for each other, and finally finding each other again, on the threshhold of death.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Having grown up in Canada, this was required reading and I must say, it was, and remains, one of my favourites. It is hugely tragic, but incredibly interesting as a history.Longfellow's work details the exile of the French Acadians from Nova Scotia by the English in the mid-18th century, many of whom ended up in Louisiana (the word "cajun" being a bastardization of "acadian,") and the lifelong search of one woman named Evangeline for her love Gabriel from whom she was separated during the exile.There is some debate as to Evangeline's actual existence, but the fact is, whether she existed or not, under another name (as many believe) or not at all, but she is immortalized in a beautiful epic poem, in a parish in Louisiana and in a driving route in Nova Scotia. Longfellow's poem brings to the forefront an oft-neglected piece of both Canadian and American history in a beautiful, if tragic, story.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Longfellow's classic poem about the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia is a bit creaky, but still intriguing for those who have never read it. The dactylic hexameter lines dance through the poem of love lost, love sought, resignation and the final culmination of spiritual transcendance. Longfellow's attempt to create a North American legend has spawned tourist attractions from Nova Scotia to Louisiana.
Book preview
Evangeline - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,—
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
Part the First
I
IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o’er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o’er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne’er from their station descended.
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the door-way.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,—
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.
Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,
Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household,
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.
Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale,