Fireside Poets

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• Also known as the "schoolroom" or the "household" poets
• First group of poets to rival British poets in popularity in Britain and American

Mainly New England

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• John Greenleaf Whittier
• James Russell Lowell
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• William Cullen Bryant
• and —were included in textbooks, and their portraits often adorned schoolroom walls

Similar Characteristics

• Highly developed language as youth
• Magazine editors and contributors, preachers, and professors

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• Most wrote about American politics and New England landscapes
• Publicly opposed slavery
• Some wrote sympathically about Native Americans

Highly didactic - teachable

• Emphasis on:
• duty
• honor
• personal responsibility
• hard work

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• Several translated the classics - classical mythology and Renaissance literature
• Used conventional meter and primarily end-rhyme

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow

• Most popular
• Only American poet with a bust in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey
• Expert translator - changed the teaching style of foreign languages

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