Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born February 27, 1807 in Portland. Henry went on to study at the bowdoin College. Later in life, Longfellow became a professor at Harvard University. Longfellow continued to write poerty and in 1854 resigned from Harvard to focus mainly on his writing. Longfellow was married twice but both died due to a miscarriage or a dress catching on fire. After resigning from Harvard, Longfellow moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and spent the rest of his days there until he died on Mach 24, 1882. Henry Longfellow was one of the most renounced poets of all time and his poetrys till stands today.
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in New York. Whitman grew up in poorer family and had seven brothers and sisters. Whitman's father once prospered as a farmer but overtime sold off land and just tried to stay above water during Whitman's younger years. At age eleven, Whitman was pulled out of school to help provide for his family since his father was unable to. Whitman started working in the printng corporation but by age seventeen he found a job teaching. Whitman's job pushed him into to journalism and he eventually started writing a newspaper. Whitman then persued poem writing and published his first book in 1885. Whitman continued this writing and became another well known poem from this time period. Whitman died March 26, 1892 in Camden.
Looking at the history of Longfellow and Whitman, you can really see the similarities in the steps they took to get them to becoming a poet. They were both near the early 1800's and held teaching positions before really focusing on their writing. Both Whitman and Longfellow stopped teaching and focused on their writing. Although Whitman was first working on newspaper before really starting his poetic career, they both had a strong interist in journalism and enjoyed it. Longfellow has left us with more memorable poems similar to nursery rhymes where Whitman's were not as obvious but still very common. These two men were some of the first famous poets so their poems have led them to a great deal of succes because they are still around today and they standards for all poets after them.
The step Whitman and Longfellow took to becoming a poet were very similar but their topics and style were much different. Especially the topics. When researching both poets, I found that several compared Longfellow's poems to nursery rhymes and he even had a few nursery rhymes. Whitman however was much different. Whitman visited wounded civil war verterans and gained inspiration for some of his writing from this. They were however in the same time period and some pieces of their work shared similar styles. Overall they were two very powerfull poets and will never be forgotten for that.
