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

2. 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.

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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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

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

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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. James Russell Lowell
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.

12. 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

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

14. 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.