Longfellow’s work on “The Poets and Poetry of Europe” appeared in 1845, and was afterwards reprinted with a supplement in 1871. The original work included 776 pages,[74] the supplement adding 340 more. The supplement is 190 in some respects better edited than the original, because it gives the names of the translators, and because he had some better translators to draw upon, especially Rossetti. It can be said fairly of the whole book that it is intrinsically one of the most attractive of a very unattractive class, a book of which the compiler justly says that, in order to render the literary history of the various countries complete, “an author of no great note has sometimes been admitted, or a poem which a severer taste would have excluded.” “The work is to be regarded,” he adds, “as a collection, rather than as a selection, and in judging any author it must be borne in mind the translations do not always preserve the rhythm and melody of the original, but often resemble soldiers moving forward when the music has ceased and the time is marked only by the tap of the drum.” It includes, in all, only ten languages, the Celtic and Slavonic being excluded, as well as the Turkish and Romaic, a thing which would now seem strange. But the editor’s frank explanation of the fact, where he says “with these I am not acquainted,” disarms7 criticism. This explanation implies that he was personally acquainted with the six Gothic languages of Northern Europe—Anglo-Saxon, Icelandish, Danish, Swedish, German, and Dutch—and the four Latin languages of the South of Europe—French, 191 Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese8. The mere9 work of compiling so large a volume in double columns of these ten languages was something formidable, and he had reason to be grateful to his friend Professor Felton, who, being a German student, as well as a Greek scholar, compiled for him all the biographical notes in the book. It is needless to say that the selection is as good as the case permitted or as the plan of the book allowed, and the volume has always maintained its place of importance in libraries. Many of the translations were made expressly for it, especially in the supplement; among these being Platen’s “Remorse,” Reboul’s “The Angel and Child,” and Malherbe’s “Consolation.” It is to be remembered that Longfellow’s standard of translation was very high and that he always maintained, according to Mrs. Fields, that Americans, French, and Germans had a greater natural gift for it than the English on account of the greater insularity10 of the latter’s natures.[75] It is also to be noted11 that he sometimes failed to find material for translation where others found it, as, for instance, amid the endless beauty of the Greek Anthology, which he called “the most melancholy12 of books with an odor of dead garlands about it. Voices from the grave, cymbals13 of Bacchantes, songs of love, sighs, groans14, 192 prayers,—all mingled15 together. I never read a book that made me sadder.”[76]
His fame at this time was widely established, yet a curious indication of the fact that he did not at once take even Cambridge by storm, as a poet, is in a letter from Professor Andrews Norton, father of the present Professor Charles E. Norton, to the Rev16. W. H. Furness of Philadelphia. The latter had apparently17 applied18 to Mr. Norton for advice as to a desirable list of American authors from whom to make some literary selections, perhaps in connection with an annual then edited by him and called “The Diadem19.” Professor Norton, as one of the most cultivated Americans, might naturally be asked for some such counsel. In replying he sent Mr. Furness, under date of January 7, 1845, a list of fifty-four eligible20 authors, among whom Emerson stood last but one, while Longfellow was not included at all. He then appended a supplementary21 list of twenty-four minor22 authors, headed by Longfellow.[77] We have already seen Lowell, from a younger point of view, describing Longfellow, at about this time, as the head of a “clique,” and we now find Andrews Norton, from an older point of view, assigning him only the first place among authors of the second grade. It is curious 193 to notice, in addition, that Hawthorne stood next to Longfellow in this subordinate roll.
Longfellow published two volumes of poetic23 selections, “The Waif” (1845) and “The Estray” (1846), the latter title being originally planned as “Estrays in the Forest,” and he records a visit to the college library, in apparent search for the origin of the phrase. His next volume of original poems, however, was “The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems,” published December 23, 1845, the contents having already been partly printed in “Graham’s Magazine,” and most of them in the illustrated24 edition of his poems published in Philadelphia. The theme of the volume appears to have been partly suggested by some words in a letter to Freiligrath which seem to make the leading poem, together with that called “Nuremberg,” a portion of that projected series of travel-sketches which had haunted Longfellow ever since “Outre-Mer.” “The Norman Baron” was the result of a passage from Thierry, sent him by an unknown correspondent. One poem was suggested by a passage in Andersen’s “Story of my Life,” and one was written at Boppard on the Rhine. All the rest were distinctly American in character or origin. Another poem, “To the Driving Cloud,” the chief of the Omaha Indians, was his first effort at hexameters and prepared the way 194 for “Evangeline.” His translation of the “Children of the Lord’s Supper” had also served by way of preparation; and he had happened upon a specimen26 in “Blackwood’s Magazine” of the hexameter translation of the “Iliad” which had impressed him very much. He even tried a passage of “Evangeline” rendered into English pentameter verse, and thus satisfied himself that it was far less effective for his purpose than the measure finally adopted.
There is no doubt that the reading public at large has confirmed the opinion of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes when he says, “Of the longer poems of our chief singer, I should not hesitate to select ‘Evangeline’ as the masterpiece, and I think the general verdict of opinion would confirm my choice.... From the first line of the poem, from its first words, we read as we would float down a broad and placid27 river, murmuring softly against its banks, heaven over it, and the glory of the unspoiled wilderness28 all around.” The words “This is the forest primeval” have become as familiar, he thinks, as the “Arma virumque cano” which opened Virgil’s “?neid,” and he elsewhere calls the poem “the tranquil29 current of these brimming, slow-moving, soul-satisfying lines.” The subject was first suggested to Longfellow by Hawthorne, who had heard it from his friend, the Rev. H. L. Conolly, and the 195 outline of it will be found in “The American Note-Books” of Hawthorne, who disappointed Father Conolly by not using it himself. It was finished on Longfellow’s fortieth birthday.
It was a striking illustration of the wide popularity of “Evangeline,” that even the proper names introduced under guidance of his rhythmical30 ear spread to other countries and were taken up and preserved as treasures in themselves. Sumner writes from England to Longfellow that the Hon. Mrs. Norton, herself well known in literature, had read “Evangeline,” not once only, but twenty times, and the scene on Lake Atchafalaya, where the two lovers pass each other unknowingly, so impressed her that she had a seal cut with the name upon it. Not long after this, Leopold, King of the Belgiums, repeated the same word to her and said that it was so suggestive of scenes in human life that he was about to have it cut on a seal, when she astonished him by showing him hers.
The best review of “Evangeline” ever written was probably the analysis made of it by that accomplished31 French traveller of half a century ago, Professor Philarète Chasles of the Collège de France, in his “Etudes sur la Littérature et les M?urs des Anglo-Américains du XIX. Siécle,” published in 1851. It is interesting to read it, and to recognize anew what has often 196 been made manifest—the greater acuteness of the French mind than of the English, when discussing American themes. Writing at that early period, M. Chasles at once recognized, for instance, the peculiar32 quality of Emerson’s genius. He describes Longfellow, in comparison, as what he calls a moonlight poet, having little passion, but a calmness of attitude which approaches majesty33, and moreover a deep sensibility, making itself felt under a subdued34 rhythm. In short, his is a slow melody and a reflective emotion, both these being well suited to the sounds and shadows of our endless plains and our forests, which have no history. He is especially struck with the resemblance of the American poet to the Scandinavians, such as Tegnèr and Oehlenschlaeger. He notices even in Longfellow the Norse tendency to alliteration35, and he quotes one of the Northern poems and then one of Longfellow’s to show this analogy. It is worth while to put these side by side. This is from Oehlenschlaeger:—
“Tilgiv tvungne
Trael af Elskov!
At han dig atter
Astsaeld findet.” ... etc.
The following is by Longfellow:—
And as heavy with shadows and night-dews,
197
The calm and magical moonlight
It is curious to notice that Chasles makes the same criticism on “Evangeline” that Holmes made on Lowell’s “Vision of Sir Launfal;” namely, that there is in it a mixture of the artificial and the natural. The result is, we may infer, that on the whole one still thinks of it as a work of art and does not—as, for instance, with Tolstoi’s “Cossacks”—think of all the characters as if they lived in the very next street. Yet it is in its way so charming, he finds that although as he says, “There is no passion in it,” still there is a perpetual air of youth and innocence39 and tenderness. M. Chasles is also impressed as a Catholic with the poet’s wide and liberal comprehension of the Christian40 ideas. It is not, he thinks, a masterpiece (Il y a loin d’Evangéline à un chef-d’?uvre), but he points out, what time has so far vindicated41, that it has qualities which guarantee to it something like immortality42. When we consider that Chasles wrote at a time when all our more substantial literature seemed to him to consist of uninteresting state histories and extensive collections of the correspondence of American presidents—a time when he could write sadly: “All America does not yet possess a humorist” 198 (Toute l’Amérique ne possède pas un humoriste), one can place it to the credit of Longfellow that he had already won for himself some sort of literary standing43 in the presence of one Frenchman. At the time of this complaint, it may be noticed that Mr. S. L. Clemens was a boy of fifteen. The usual European criticism at the present day is not that America produces so few humorists, but that she brings forth44 so many.
The work which came next from Longfellow’s pen has that peculiar value to a biographer which comes from a distinct, unequivocal, low-water mark in the intellectual product with which he has to deal. This book, “Kavanagh,” had the curious fate of bringing great disappointment to most of his friends and admirers, and yet of being praised by the two among his contemporaries personally most successful in fiction, Hawthorne and Howells. Now that the New England village life has proved such rich material in the hands of Mary Wilkins, Sarah Jewett, and Rowland Robinson, it is difficult to revert45 to “Kavanagh” (1849) without feeling that it is from beginning to end a piece of purely academic literature without a type of character, or an incident—one might almost say without a single phrase—that gives quite the flavor of real life. Neither the joys nor the griefs really reach the reader’s heart for one 199 moment. All the characters use essentially the same dialect, and every sentence is duly supplied with its anecdote46 or illustration, each one of which is essentially bookish at last. It has been well said of it that it is an attempt to look at rural society as Jean Paul would have looked at it. Indeed, we find Longfellow reading aloud from the “Campaner Thal” while actually at work on “Kavanagh,” and he calls the latter in his diary “a romance.”[78] When we consider how remote Jean Paul seems from the present daily life of Germany, one feels the utter inappropriateness of his transplantation to New England. Yet Emerson read the book “with great contentment,” and pronounced it “the best sketch25 we have seen in the direction of the American novel,” and discloses at the end the real charm he found or fancied by attributing to it “elegance.” Hawthorne, warm with early friendship, pronounces it “a most precious and rare book, as fragrant47 as a bunch of flowers and as simple as one flower.... Nobody but yourself would dare to write so quiet a book, nor could any other succeed in it. It is entirely48 original, a book by itself, a true work of genius, if ever there was one.” Nothing, I think, so well shows us the true limitations of American literature at that period as these curious phrases. It is 200 fair also to recognize that Mr. W. D. Howells, writing nearly twenty years later, says with almost equal exuberance49, speaking of “Kavanagh,” “It seems to us as yet quite unapproached by the multitude of New England romances that have followed it in a certain delicate truthfulness50, as it is likely to remain unsurpassed in its light humor and pensive51 grace.”[79]
The period following the publication of “Evangeline” seemed a more indeterminate and unsettled time than was usual with Longfellow. He began a dramatic romance of the age of Louis XIV., but did not persist in it, and apart from the story of “Kavanagh” did no extended work. He continued to publish scattered52 poems, and in two years (1850) there appeared another volume called “The Seaside and the Fireside” in which the longest contribution and the most finished—perhaps the most complete and artistic53 which he ever wrote—was called “The Building of the Ship.” To those who remember the unequalled voice and dramatic power of Mrs. Kemble, it is easy to imagine the enthusiasm with which her reading of this poem was received by an audience of three thousand, and none the less because at that troubled time the concluding appeal to the union had a distinct bearing on the conflicts of the time. For 201 the rest of the volume, it included the strong and lyric54 verses called “Seaweed,” which were at the time criticised by many, though unreasonably55, as rugged56 and boisterous57; another poem of dramatic power, “Sir Humphrey Gilbert;” and one of the most delicately imaginative and musical among all he ever wrote, “The Fire of Drift-Wood,” the scene of which was the Devereux Farm at Marblehead. There were touching58 poems of the fireside, especially that entitled “Resignation,” written in 1848 after the death of his little daughter Fanny, and one called “The Open Window.” Looking back from this, his fourth volume of short poems, it must be owned that he had singularly succeeded in providing against any diminution59 of power or real monotony. Nevertheless his next effort was destined60 to be on a wider scale.
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1
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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disarms
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| v.裁军( disarm的第三人称单数 )；使息怒 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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insularity
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| n.心胸狭窄；孤立；偏狭；岛国根性 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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cymbals
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| pl.铙钹 | |
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groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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diadem
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| n.王冠，冕 | |
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eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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supplementary
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| adj.补充的，附加的 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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alliteration
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| n.（诗歌的）头韵 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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inundate
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| vt.淹没，泛滥，压倒 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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41
vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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revert
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| v.恢复，复归，回到 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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47
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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48
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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49
exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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50
truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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51
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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52
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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53
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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54
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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55
unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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57
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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58
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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59
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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60
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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