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Nick Basbanes

Series

The Learning Curve1 episode

Recent Episodes

The Learning Curve
The Learning Curve

Author Nicholas Basbanes on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow & the Spirit of American Poetry

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Nicholas Basbanes, author of the 2020 literary biography, Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He shares why poetry - from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer to Dante, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes - may well be the most influential, enduring form of written human expression. He then provides brief highlights of Longfellow’s life, and why he was often regarded as the most popular and recognizable “fireside poet” New England has ever produced. They discuss the tragic death of his second wife Frances Appleton in 1861, and his lasting importance as among our nation’s most celebrated poets, literary figures, and translators of Dante. They review Longfellow’s well-known poems, including “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and “Paul Revere's Ride,” recited by countless generations of schoolchildren, and their wider cultural impact on interest in poetry in American schools.
Hosts:
Cara CandalGerard Robinson
Organization
Pioneer Institute