America’s First Literary Stars The Fireside Poets America’s First Literary Stars

What are the Fireside Poets? First group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. Preferred conventional forms over experimentation. Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter.

Who were the Fireside Poets? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow James Russell Lowell Oliver Wendell Holmes John Greenleaf Whittier

The purposes and content of American literature took a drastic shift at the end of the 18th century. Now that American had earned her freedom, the need for persuasive writing and political pamphlets ceased to be such a demand.

Literature began to be more reflective; something to be enjoyed and shared. The Fireside Poets were a group of men whose writings were especially prized for newfound 'family time' - literature was literally shared around the fireside as an activity.

Both Fireside Poets and Transcendentalist were similar in that they both were involved with Romanticism. They were called Fireside Poets because the poems had rhymed stanzas which made their body of work easy to memorize and recite at school and at home

It was mainly a source of entertainment for families gathered around a "fire" which gave them the name "fireside Poets". 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882 Attended Bowdoin College with Nathaniel Hawthorne! Taught at Harvard for 18 years.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow First wife died from an infection following a miscarriage; Eight years later, after a long courtship, he married his second wife; She died after being fatally burned in a household accident.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Longfellow’s attempts to beat out the flames left him badly burned. The scars prevented him from shaving. His optimism made him the most popular poet of his time. He became known as a Fireside poet, whose works were read by families gathered around the fireplace.

James Russell Lowell 1819-1891 Of the prominent Boston Brahmin Lowell family Active in anti-slavery causes His career was disrupted by personal tragedies, including the deaths of his wife and three children.

Oliver Wendell Holmes 1809-1894 Medical doctor – invented the term “anesthesia.” Composed “Old Ironsides,” which saved the U.S.S. Constitution from the scrapyard Father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Wrote The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-1892 Composed Snow-bound and Legends of New England Active in anti-slavery movement

Lasting Impact Longfellow remained the most popular American poet for decades. When Poe criticized him, he was all but ostracized. Longfellow remains the only American poet to be immortalized by a bust in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner They took on causes in their poetry, such as the abolition of slavery, which brought the issues to the forefront in a palatable way. Through their scholarship and editorial efforts, they paved the way for later Transcendental writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.