Blog #7

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine on February 27, 1807.  He loved to read and liked the plays of Shakespear and stories set in foreign places.  He went to Bowdoin College, and after graduating there he studied modern languages in Europe for three years.  He than came back to Bowdoin to teach about them.  Longfellow worked at Harvard in 1836, and in 1839 he published his first collection of poems. He married Frances Appleton and had six children.  He wrote "Paul Rever's Ride."  His wife died in 1861.  In 1865 when the Civil war ended, most of his important work was finished but still had a famous lifestyle.  He still published more poetry books.  In of 1882 he passed away.

Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819.  When Whitman was 12 he bagan to learn the printer's trade, and read a lot.  He worked as a printer until a fire ruined the industry in New York City.  When he was 17, he started out as a teacher in Long Island until 1841, where he focused on journalism for his real career.  He is the founder of the weekly newpspaper, the Long-Islander.  He was also a newspaper editor.  In 1848, he founded a "free soil" newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman.  He developed a certain style of poetry that inspired  Ralph Waldo emerson.  He published 12 untitled poems and a preface in 1855, and a second edition that consisted of 33 poems in 1856.  In 1862, he went to Washington D.C. to take care of his brother who had been hurt during the war.  Whitman wasn't a very supportive person of himself.  He was kind though because he would spend his extra money to buy supplies for patients he once took care of.  He settled down in Camden, New Jersey, where he bought a home from the money he earned from the publication of Leaves of Grass in 1882.  He had finished one of his final poems, called Good-Bye, My Fancy in 1891.  He died on March 26, 1892.

Comparisons/Differences
Walt Whitman and Henry Longfellow were similar in the fact that they both were successful poets. Longfellow went to Bowdoin College, while Whitman started out as a teacher at age 17.  As two young-aged kids, they both loved to read with a passion.  As far as writing styles, we know that Walt Whitman had an ispiring one that was even inspiring enough to catch Ralph Waldo Emerson's eye!  Whitman was an editor, but also was a journalism and poet.  Longfellow seemed to study modern languages, and was a poet mostly.  Longfellow's writing style had some imagination to it since as a kid he loved to read stories set in foreign places.  As for their writing subjects, Longfellow focused more on myths and Whitmas was more of a writer upon slavery.  Whitman might have written about slavery with the injury of his brother in the Civil War, which would attract him closer to the sights of the war and what was going on in it.