Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Oregon. Ever since he was a young child he was bustin' rhymes. To remember the order of his seven other siblings' ages, he made up a rhyme. How clever is that? When the war of 1812 broke out, Henry was found in the middle of a devastated town. This inspired him to publish his first poem at age 13 that was published in the "Portland Gazette" that he simply signed "HENRY". After passing his entrance exams, Henry applied to the Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. There, his father tried to persuade him to go into law. Instead he took, not one, but three years abroad starting in 1826. This trip inspired many works and ventures back to Europe in the future. He developed a love for languages and began to teach French, Spanish, and Italian at his alma mater in 1829. After his marriage to Mary Potter he then became a true writer. Mary later died of a complicated miscarriage. His second wife was Fanny Appleton and they wed in 1843 where they inherited the Craigie House in Cambridge. They later had six children together. Henry's poetic success climbed higher and higher. Henry taught modern languages Harvard and quit when his works were able to support him and his family. The tragic death of his beloved Fanny in 1861 embarked a new stage of Longfellow poems. Surprisingly, only one poem from this stage expresses his grief. On his seventieth birthday in 1877, he was nationally celebrated. Sadly, three years later he perished.
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in a farmhouse in New York. He came from a large family of eleven and resided in Brooklyn most of his childhood. At age twelve, Whitman developed a passion for the written word. He mostly taught himself with the grand works of Homer,Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible. At age seventeen in 1836, he began his career of teaching in Long Island. He continued to do so until 1841. Whitman started a weekly newspaper titled the Long Islander and went on to become very well acquainted with such works.During the Civil War, he traveled down to Washington, D.C. to take care of his wounded brother. While there, he decided to stay and work for the hospitals. After that, he settled in Camden, NJ where he stayed with his dying mother. When Leaves of Grass was finally published, he gained enough money to buy a house there. He spent most of his time there working on additions and revisions to Leaves of Grass. His final work was titled Good-Bye, My Fancy (1891). He later died on March 26, 1892.
Longfellow was a long-time teacher who wrote marvelous poems on the side. His most famous works are "The Song of Hiawatha", Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, and "Paul Revere's Ride". He brought poetry writing to another level. His poems were used everywhere! He inspired schools to teach it and learn from it and also heard his poems be recited in large concert halls and ceremonies. He contributed to American poetry immensely! Whitman was a man who was just trying to get by while writing poems and working various jobs. Whitman worked as a teacher, in a hospital, as a clerk, and finally as a poet. His most famous works are Leaves of Grass, Drum Taps, Passage to India, and Good-Bye, My Fancy. Whitman is honored through his poetry everyday in classrooms all across America.
Comparing both authors, I notice that both were teachers at one point and grew up with open minded views on the world. While Longfellow was a teacher at very high levels for long periods of time, Whitman was not a teacher for that long. In fact, he worked as a clerk the longest. They seem to write about different things. I notice that Longfellow prefers to write about history and events throughout history, while Whitman seems to write about the things around him. All in all, both authors are very talented and influential on the poetic society.
