Henry Wadsworth Longfellow cytaty

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – amerykański poeta, przedstawiciel romantyzmu, nazywany „królem poezji amerykańskiej”; także filolog, tłumacz i wykładowca, autor liryki kontemplacyjnej oraz dwóch narodowych eposów. Trzecia po George’u Washingtonie i Abrahamie Lincolnie największa postać panteonu narodowego Stanów Zjednoczonych, obok Walta Whitmana powszechnie uważany za najpopularniejszego poetę XIX wieku. Członek grupy literackiej znanej jako Fireside Poets, w której skład wchodzili także John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell i William Cullen Bryant. Jeden z prekursorów nowoczesnej filologii.

Choć sam Longfellow − w przeciwieństwie do Walta Whitmana czy Ralpha Waldo Emersona − był zdecydowanym przeciwnikiem „literatury narodowej” na rzecz „literatury uniwersalnej i ponadnarodowej”, jego poezja odegrała znaczący wpływ na kształtowanie się tożsamości oraz folkloru Stanów Zjednoczonych, a on sam uznany został w Europie za pierwszego wielkiego klasyka zza Oceanu. Dość obfita twórczość Longfellowa miała przy tym ambicje moralizatorskie, reprezentując wobec młodego społeczeństwa amerykańskiego ideały pokoleń pionierów kolonizacji: kult ogniska domowego i życia rodzinnego zgodnego z zasadami Ewangelii, potrzebę wewnętrznego spokoju i harmonii pośród przeciwieństw losu, głębokiego zrozumienia przyrody oraz aktywizmu życiowego w duchu wiary, nadziei i miłości.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, za życia uznawany za najbardziej znaczącego twórcę swojego pokolenia, po śmierci stał się obiektem ostrej krytyki, która zarzucała mu brak oryginalności, wtórność w stosunku do zastanych wzorców europejskich oraz pisanie z myślą o czytelniczych masach. Mimo to poeta z Portland na trwałe zapisał się w tradycji Stanów Zjednoczonych jako jedna z najważniejszych figur; jego życie i twórczość stały się przy tym źródłem wielu amerykańskich przysłów oraz głównym tematem piosenek folkowych i country. Wiąże się z tym również powstanie zabytków kultury takich jak choćby Longfellow Bridge czy Longfellow's Wayside Inn, licznych pomników, narodowych pamiątek, a nawet nazw miast czy wsi. Wikipedia  

✵ 27. Luty 1807 – 24. Marzec 1882   •   Natępne imiona Генри Уодсворт Лонгфелло, Longfello Genri Uodsuort
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Fotografia
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: 221   Cytatów 2   Polubienia

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow słynne cytaty

„Muzyka jest uniwersalnym językiem rodzaju ludzkiego.”

Źródło: Małgorzata Kronenberger, Muzykoterapia. Podstawy teoretyczne do zastosowania muzykoterapii w profilaktyce stresu, Mediatour, Szczecin 2003, ISBN 8391200620.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow cytaty

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Cytaty po angielsku

“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.
Źródło: Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.”

Wariant: The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

“The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest”

"The Battle of Lovell's Pond," poem first published in the Portland Gazette (November 17, 1820).
Kontekst: 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

“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.”

The Secret of the Sea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen.”

Table-Talk (1857)
Kontekst: Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, — a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen. By going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this man or that, or by turning down this street instead of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the whole current of our lives would have been changed. There is no possible solution to the dark enigma but the one word, "Providence".

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow książka Voices of the Night

St. 7.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Źródło: Voices of the Night

“All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time.”

The Builders.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“All your strength is in your union,
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow książka The Song of Hiawatha

Pt. I, The Peace-Pipe, st. 13.
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839).
Wariant: 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.
Kontekst: "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."

“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!”

Źródło: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
Kontekst: 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.

“I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre!”

God's-Acre, st. 1 (1842).
Kontekst: I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

“This divine madness enters more or less into all our noblest undertakings.”

Here Longfellow is translating or paraphrasing an expression attributed to a canon of Seville, also quoted as "we shall have a church so great and of such a kind that those who see it built will think we were mad".
Table-Talk (1857)
Kontekst: "Let us build such a church, that those who come after us shall take us for madmen," said the old canon of Seville, when the great cathedral was planned. Perhaps through every mind passes some such thought, when it first entertains the design of a great and seemingly impossible action, the end of which it dimly foresees. This divine madness enters more or less into all our noblest undertakings.

“And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Old Clock on the Stairs

The Old Clock on the Stairs, st. 9 (1845).
Kontekst: Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
"Forever — never!
Never — forever!"

“Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring!”

Źródło: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
Kontekst: 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.

“I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.”

Źródło: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 30.
Kontekst: 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.

“They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.”

"The Battle of Lovell's Pond," poem first published in the Portland Gazette (November 17, 1820).
Kontekst: 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 Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable.”

Table-Talk (1857)
Kontekst: 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.

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending”

Elegiac Verse, st. 14 (1879).
Kontekst: Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.

“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.
Kontekst: 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.

“Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange”

Kéramos http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheCompletePoeticalWorksofHenryWadsworthLongfellow/chap22.html, st. 3 (1878).
Kontekst: Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.

Podobni autorzy

Henry David Thoreau Fotografia
Henry David Thoreau 94
amerykański pisarz, poeta i filozof
Walt Whitman Fotografia
Walt Whitman 16
poeta amerykański
Robert Browning Fotografia
Robert Browning 8
angielski poeta
Percy Bysshe Shelley Fotografia
Percy Bysshe Shelley 6
angielski poeta
Edgar Allan Poe Fotografia
Edgar Allan Poe 20
poeta i nowelista amerykański
Arthur Rimbaud Fotografia
Arthur Rimbaud 40
francuski poeta
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Fotografia
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 33
poeta angielski
Heinrich Heine Fotografia
Heinrich Heine 44
poeta niemiecki
Hans Christian Andersen Fotografia
Hans Christian Andersen 12
duński pisarz i poeta
Oscar Wilde Fotografia
Oscar Wilde 186
angielski poeta, prozaik i dramatopisarz