Exploring the Legacy of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry W. Longfellow
Poetic Truths: Hawthorne, Longfellow and American Visual Culture, 1840-1880 answers a question posed many years ago: How will the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art (BCMA) celebrate Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, two of the College’s most renowned men of letters, on the occasion of their Class of 1825 bicentennial? The resulting exhibition offers the opportunity to consider aspects of their vast influence on nineteenth-century American art and culture. Across the campus at the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, director Kat Stefko was researching members of the class, often described as ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾’s most famous, to update their biographies and reveal new insights into their lives as young students and beyond. Together the pair of projects — objects-based and paper-based —create a fitting tribute to the cultural influence of Hawthorne and Longfellow.
What objects would be included in the Museum’s exhibition and how could they be located? While BCMA’s collection includes portraits, prints, and other works associated with the authors, the goal for Poetic Truths was to illustrate the work of America’s finest nineteenth-century artists who were inspired by the writers’ stories. These were narrowed to works created during the writers’ lifetimes. This excluded objects associated with the writers’ subsequent influence on the Colonial Revival in America.
Courtesy, National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. LONG 4138 Thankfully, the research of art historians and literary scholars over the past quarter century has identified extraordinary works of art. For example, Christopher P. Monkhouse, a scholar-curator of American material culture, Longfellow aficionado, and, like Longfellow, a Portland, Maine, native, identified major paintings and sculpture associated with the poet’s epics, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847) and The Song of Hiawatha (1855) during research for his exhibition Currents of Change: Art and the Mississippi in the 1850s at Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2004.
George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Library, Brunswick, Maine Literary scholars revealed how art objects of all kinds, in turn, inspired the writers. Among these titles, Prophetic Pictures: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Knowledge and Uses of the Visual Arts (1991) by Rita K. Gollin and John L. Idol, Jr., with the assistance of Sterling K. Eisiminger, is invaluable for understanding the sources in Hawthorne’s three romances, The Scarlet Letter: A Romance (1850), The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance (1851), and The Marble Faun: or, the Romance of Monte Beni (1860). Please see the Selected Bibliography for additional sources and links.
Hawthorne and Longfellow could not have been more different in their backgrounds, outlooks, and personalities. The following biographical overviews offer some insights into their lives and their friendship.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; Gift of Professor Richard C. Manning, 1933 The great Romantic novelist and short story writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804 and grew up there, steeped in the history of that place. His father died at sea when he was three, a profound loss that shaped his life. While at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾, the introverted Hawthorne shunned society, admitting that he was “an idle student.” He and Henry Longfellow were not then well acquainted, but both writers looked locally for subjects, and Hawthorne presented the lives of early New Englanders like no other American writer of his day. From 1825 until 1837, Hawthorne lived at home, reading and writing but rarely socializing. His short stories for periodicals appeared anonymously and he struggled to gain recognition. In 1837 his ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ classmate Horatio Bridge helped him publish Twice-Told Tales, which marked a professional turning point. Following Longfellow’s positive review, Hawthorne reconnected with his classmate, and they became close friends. In 1842, Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody, an accomplished artist who encouraged his interest in European and American art. As their family grew, he augmented his writing income by working intermittently in public administration, notably as surveyor at Salem’s Custom House. During his lifetime Hawthorne published over one hundred short stories and four novels, gaining international acclaim. His work remains among America’s most celebrated literature. He died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, in 1864, while traveling with his friend Franklin Pierce (ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ Class of 1824). This was nearly a generation before the death of Longfellow.
Courtesy, National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. LONG 4127 America’s first professional poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow presents a stark contrast to his classmate. Born in Portland, Maine, in 1807, he grew up in a family that nurtured his intellectual pursuits. He excelled at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College and dedicated his 1825 Commencement address to “Our Native Writers,” revealing his commitment to promoting an American literary identity. Longfellow so impressed College authorities that they offered him ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾’s first professorship of modern languages on the condition that he travel to Europe to prepare for the position. He began teaching in 1829, and married Mary Potter of Portland in 1831. In 1834 he accepted Harvard’s offer to become the Smith Professor of Modern Languages, and he traveled abroad, again, to master German and other European languages. While abroad Mary tragically died in 1835. When Henry remarried in 1843, he found in Frances Appleton a soulmate who provided critical professional support. Longfellow’s flourishing career, characterized by literary innovation and important translations, enabled him to retire from teaching in 1854 to write full time. Tragedy beset the author, again, when Frances died in 1861 in a domestic fire. He sustained burns trying to save her and grew a beard to hide the scars. Beloved worldwide, Longfellow continued writing poetry and translated Dante’s The Divine Comedy, furthering his global reputation and influence. He died at Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1882, his home for forty years.
In offering this opportunity to consider the artistic influences of these great men of American letters, Poetic Truths is enriched by the works of art generously lent by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Library’s George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives; Concord Free Public Library Corporation; Howard University’s Gallery of Art and Moorland-Spingarn Research Center; the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Site; the Maine Historical Society; McGuigan Collection; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Peabody Essex Museum. These extraordinary works offer insights about ideas that were important to Hawthorne and Longfellow — from Hester Prynne to Minnehaha; they remain relevant today. They also reveal opportunities for further research to deepen our understanding of art and culture in nineteenth-century America.
Laura F. Sprague
Senior Consulting Curator
