Frasi di Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Data di nascita: 27. Febbraio 1807
Data di morte: 24. Marzo 1882
Altri nomi:Longfello Genri Uodsuort, Генри Уодсворт Лонгфелло
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow è stato uno scrittore e poeta statunitense, tra i primi letterati americani ad assurgere alla fama mondiale.
Longfellow fu il più famoso poeta della scena del New England nell''800 e scrisse numerose opere tra cui Evangeline e Il faro.
Fu un acceso promotore dell'abolizione della schiavitù negli anni prima e durante la Guerra Civile Americana insieme ad altri intellettuali che gravitavano nell'orbita di Harvard e soprattutto insieme all'allora Governatore del Massachusetts John Andrew.
Intorno al 1862 insieme ai letterati James Russell Lowell, Oliver W. Holmes e George Washington Greene diede vita al cosiddetto "Circolo Dante", atto a promuovere la conoscenza della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri negli Stati Uniti. Insieme ai suoi colleghi del circolo, Longfellow ne portò a termine la prima traduzione statunitense in inglese nel 1867.
Da allora il successo dell'opera di Dante in America fu costante ed in seguito il Circolo diventò la "Dante Society", una delle più famose associazioni di dantisti nel mondo.
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poeta, scrittoreFrasi Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
„Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."
Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839).
„Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
Part I, section 3.
„My soul is full of longing
For the secret of the Sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Secret of the Sea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
„If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
„All nature, he holds, is a respiration
Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter
Will inhale it into his bosom again,
So that nothing but God alone will remain.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: I think I have proved, by profound researches,
The error of all those doctrines so vicious
Of the old Areopagite Dyonisius,
That are making such terrible work in the churches,
By Michael the Stammerer sent from the East,
And done into Latin by that Scottish beast,
Erigena Johannes, who dares to maintain,
In the face of the truth, the error infernal,
That the universe is and must be eternal;
At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,
That nothing with God can be accidental;
Then asserting that God before the creation
Could not have existed, because it is plain
That, had he existed, he would have created;
Which is begging the question that should be debated,
And moveth me less to anger than laughter.
All nature, he holds, is a respiration
Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter
Will inhale it into his bosom again,
So that nothing but God alone will remain.
The Golden Legend, Pt. VI, A travelling Scholastic affixing his Theses to the gate of the College.
„If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.
Chapter 13.
„Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring!“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.
Chapter 13.
„I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it. I stand in awe of my own opinion. The secret demerits of which we alone, perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in some degree atoned for.
Chapter 30.
„They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: p>The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed;
No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,
And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim;
They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.</p
"The Battle of Lovell's Pond," poem first published in the Portland Gazette (November 17, 1820).
„The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable.“
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Context: The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature, — were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.
