Michael Angelo, Drama by Longfellow
MICHAEL ANGELO a drama written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Michel, piu che mortal, Angel divino. — ARIOSTO. Similamente operando all’ artista ch’ a l’abito dell’ arte e man che trema. — DANTE, Par. xiii.,...
Category: English 3: American Literature
William Cullen Bryant Poems
Poems by American poet William Cullen Bryant: “Thanatopsis” “To a Waterfowl” “March” (5th poem on this page of March Poetry) To read a humorous account of Bryant’s poetry, written by one of his peers,...
N. C. Wyeth Biography
Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N. C. Wyeth, was an American painter and illustrator. He was a student of Howard Pyle and became one of America’s most...
Ernest Hemingway Biography
Brief Biography Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his...
Emily Dickinson Biography
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson...
Poet’s Calendar by Longfellow
The Poet’s Calendar, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow JANUARY Janus am I; oldest of potentates; Forward I look, and backward, and below I count, as god of avenues and gates, The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow; I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. FEBRUARY I am lustration, and the sea is mine! I wash the sands and headlands with my tide; My brow is crowned with branches of the pine; Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide. By me all things unclean are purified, By me the souls of men washed white again; E’en the unlovely tombs of those who died Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain. MARCH I Martius am! Once first, and now the third! To lead the Year was my appointed place; A mortal dispossessed me by a word, And set there Janus with the double face. Hence I make war on all the human race; I shake the cities with my hurricanes; I flood the rivers and their banks efface, And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains....
F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography
Brief Bio Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of...
Walt Whitman Biography
Brief Biography: Walt Whitman, whose full name was Walter Whitman Jr. (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets...
Edith Wharton Biography
Edith Wharton: Pulitzer-Prize winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton combined her insider’s view of America’s privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of...
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness,...
To a Waterfowl by Bryant
by William Cullen Bryant To a Waterfowl Whither, ‘midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the...
Willa Cather Biography
A GREAT AMERICAN WRITER “Miss Cather is Nebraska’s foremost citizen,” wrote author and Nobel Prize-winner Sinclair Lewis. “The United States knows Nebraska because of Willa Cather’s books.” Today Willa Cather is one of the...
Amy Lowell Biography
Biography of Amy Lowell BY RACHEL JIRKA Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, to a wealthy and influential family in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of five children born to Augustus...
Helen Hunt Jackson Biography
Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (1831-1885) was an American poet and novelist and advocate for improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She is best known for Ramona, a novel about the plight...
William Cullen Bryant Biography
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878), American poet and journalist, was born at Cummington, a farming village in the Hampshire hills of western Massachusetts, on the 3rd of November 1794. He was the second son of...
John Greenleaf Whittier Biography
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), America’s “Quaker poet” of freedom, faith and the sentiment of the common people, was born in a Merrimack Valley farmhouse, Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the 17th of December 1807. Family Ancestry &...
Marianne Moore Poetry
Marianne Moore (1887 – 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. She won several awards for her poetry in her lifetime, and her poems are frequently anthologized. Poetry (1919) by Marianne...
The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets
Outline of American Literature: Chapter 4 The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets By Kathryn VanSpanckeren TRANSCENDENTALISM Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Walt Whitman (1819-1892) THE BRAHMIN POETS Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)...
To S. M. — A Young African Painter, a poem by Phillis Wheatley
To S. M. A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works by Phillis Wheatley TO show the lab’ring bosom’s deep intent, And thought in living characters to paint, When first thy pencil did those...
Henry James Biography
American author Henry James, a transitional figure between literary realism and modernism, is often numbered among the great English-language novelists.
How to Make a Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype, an early photographic process, was invented by French artist and photographer Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Introduced in 1830, it was the first publicly available photographic process but was superseded by less complicated processes in...
Washington Irving: A Biography
American writer Washington Irving, best known for “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” was an essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat.
Washington Irving Timeline
Washington Irving’s place in history This timeline documents major events and influences on Washington Irving’s life and work. It begins by outlining the events and publications in Irving’s life, then looks at American literature, visual...
![Major Andres Tree by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) (from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) (New York Public Library Digital Collections) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/www.excellence-in-literature.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Major_Andres_Tree_Rackham-sm-1.jpg?fit=256%2C331&ssl=1)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow A short story by Washington Irving Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the story of the ill-fated 1790 courtship of Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of a wealthy...
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
COMMON SENSE addressed to the INHABITANTS of AMERICA, On the following interesting SUBJECTS —Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution. —Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession...
Robert Frost Resources
Robert Frost Resources Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) was a highly-regarded American poet known for realistic depictions of New England rural life as well as his use of American colloquial speech. His work used homespun...
F. Scott Fitzgerald Resources
F. Scott Fitzgerald Resources Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) led a life as colorful as one of his Jazz Age novels. Although he wrote only four complete novels and short stories, he is widely...
Fitzgerald Audio Recordings
F. Scott Fitzgerald Audio Recordings Listen to these 1940s recordings of F. Scott Fitzgerald reading and reciting famous literature — he has a magnificent, magical voice that seems to give insight into his works...
Fitzgerald Collection at USC
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection at the University of South Carolina A fascinating F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection of documents has been made available online. According to the library’s description, “This F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary website was launched...
The Courtship of Miles Standish by Longfellow
The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow This narrative poem written in 1858 by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow tells a charming tale of a courtship during the early days of Plymouth...
