Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born February 27, 1807, to Stephen Longfellow, a prominent lawyer, and Zilpah Wadsworth. He had a fondness for reading and language in his youth. In 1836, after a few years abroad studying language, he was given a professorship at Harvard. He began a prolific literary career and published several works that have had a profound effect on American literature, like Evangeline, a book-length poem about what would now be called “ethnic cleansing”, and “Paul Revere’s Ride”, a poem that encouraged bravery in a nation headed rapidly towards civil war.

Edgar Allan Poe took huge issue with much of Longfellow’s work, claiming that he plagiarized ideas from other literary minds and gained his reputation unfairly. Part of his resentment probably stemmed from the fact that Longfellow never had to worry about his finances because of his professorship at Harvard, whereas Poe struggled for financial stability his entire life. Longfellow never publicly responded to Poe’s attacks, keeping him out of the fight and putting Poe in the wrong. He died in 1882, at 75.

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