Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is my favorite American author. I have written many blogs about his life and works, his important role as a Linguist, in translating works by French and German authors and introducing these languages to Academia in the United States while a Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, and so much more. He is the Professor and Linguist that I want to be, someday!

For this blog, I am referencing the scholarship of Andrew Hilen in Longfellow and Scandinavia: A Study of the Poet’s Relationship with the Northern Language and Literature , Yale University Press (1947). It is such a pleasure to come across a book that was written specifically for me! Just the thought of Longfellow traveling across these Scandinavian countries and learning the language, culture, literature, and translating great works to bring back to his students ( as well as the great Universities of the newly formed United States)is just thrilling.

Of course, at this point in time, as is still true today, the Scandinavian languages and literature held little interest for few scholars. Those who had any enthusiasm for foreign culture reserved it for the European nations of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. This was true when Longfellow when he entered Bowdoin College in 1821—his instructors neither knew nor cared about literary personalities in Scandinavia.

For one thing, according to Hilen, language barriers were insuperable and compared with the lure of “the riches of Italy (interesting post WWII), the soft charm of Spain, and the mental fervor of Germany (post Hitler??), the remote lands of the North had presumably nothing to offer”(1).

So, now we ask, how Longfellow who was not academically trained, gained an interest in Scandinavia—even to the point of moving there and cultivating its language and culture? No one knows for sure; it is purely conjecture. According to some Longfellow scholars, he had an early interest in the novels and poems of Walter Scott, who was fascinated with the close relationship between the Scottish and Scandinavian traditions. [One can find these themes in Scott’s Harold the Dauntless and The Pirate].

It is known, however, that when Longfellow travelled to Europe after graduation from Bowdoin college to begin his preparation in the languages of the Continent, he arrived first in Rome and had the opportunity to meet various members of the Swedish colony there. He became fast friends with several artists and diplomats, specifically the poet Karl August Nicander. He spent much time in his home and was introduced to the romantic movement of Scandinavia through Nicander’s exposition of Frithiofs Saga.

Over the next year, Nicander influenced Longfellow to devote special hours to the study of northern culture, specifically Scandinavian literature. Unfortunately, Longfellow did not have access to books on Scandinavian subjects in the United States. I can attest to this same issue, today! When researching this subject, I was only able to find one resource on Longfellow’s interest in Scandinavia and it was through this rare book by Hilen which I located in the university library where I teach. Hilen relates that Longfellow found his greatest source of information concerning Scandinavian literature in the contemporary British and American periodicals.

One of my favorite parts of Longfellow’s story is how he was commissioned by Havard in 1835 to travel back to Europe for “ a year or 18 months for a more perfect  attainment of the German”(9). During this trip, Longfellow devoted several months to reside in Stockholm and Copenhagen in order to learn the language and culture and acquire Scandinavian Literature to bring back to the Harvard Library. The following winter he traveled to Berlin, Switzerland, and France.

Longfellow’s Summer in Sweden and Denmark, 1835

Longfellow’s wish to engage in the Scandinavian literary society was richly realized in the Royal Library as Professor Schröder introduced him to the Codex Argenteus and the manuscript collection and found several rare books in the Public Library which he purchased for the Harvard Library.

Longfellow spent many hours roaming the Swedish countryside among the medieval relics, the pastoral shores of the canal, the Vreta Klosterkyrka at Berg, and the imposing ruins of Bohus Castle high on the crags above the Göta river. Unfortunately, Longfellow was not impressed with Stockholm, at all:

“There is no spirit—no life—no enterprise—in a word—“no nothing…Literature is an abject condition. And it is so cold here, it rains every day” (20). His disappointments would lead to a break in the relationship with Nicander who had led Longfellow to believe that he would “find in Stockholm a coterie of scholars who would share with him their exploration of Scandinavian’s ancient history in old books and manuscripts”(21).

This was not to be.

Longfellow began to learn Swedish. His journal reveals a laborious and stubborn effort to master the rudiments of the language. It was slow, slow, work. He began to translate poetry from the Swedish author Tegnér. He was not a complete master of the language and did not know it as he knew German, French, and Italian…this is an impressive feat in itself!

Professor Longfellow, som är sinned att till sitt fädernsland hemföra de utmärktaste sa väl äldre som nyare, Svenska skrifter i omförmälte kunskapsgrenar…[Professor Longfellow, is minded to bring home to his fatherland the most excellent, both older and newer, Swedish writings in aforementioned branches of knowledge] (29).

Longfellow translated many Swedish works for the Poets and Poetry of Europe including  the Swedish drama Tobiæ comedia and Stagnelius’s Glädjeflickan I Rom.

On to Denmark.

Longfellow was immediately delighted with Copenhagen and found it “more European in atmosphere and more cosmopolitan than Stockholm”(23). The Danish capital was the great center of research in Icelandic philology. Its libraries owned many of the manuscript treasures of the North and the Oldnordisk Museum which had a new interest in archeology. He quickly gained access to a circle of scholars who were working on Antiquitates Americanae and exchanged lessons on the North American Indians for lessons in Icelandic, both in language and literature. He was officially invited to join the Nordiske Oldskriftsselskab –Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries. Longfellow vowed upon accepting this invitiation to “do all my power to make the Literature of the North better known to all my countrymen”(Longfellow to Rafn, December 23, 1835 Breve fra og til Carl Christian Rafn, 177).

One of the highlights of Longfellow’s time spent in Denmark was his friendship with Hans Christian Andersen, whose reputation had invaded America during the middle of the century. Andersen was Longfellow’s favorite Danish author and he often turned to him for relaxation after scholarly and literary chores (Longfellow, 73). Their relationship was one of distant admiration as Andersen greatly admired Longfellow’s work.

Other Danish author’s whom Longfellow referenced in The Poems and Poetry of Europe Were Robert Watt, Henrik Hertz, Henrik Wergerland, and B.S. Ingemann.

And finally, Iceland.

Three years before his death, Longfellow wrote to Harvard Professor Henry Johnson, “My knowledge of Icelandic Literature is limited to two Eddas, the Heimskringla, and some of the Sagas…with modern literature of the country, I am unacquainted” (88).

Longfellow, in his humility, did not boast of his authority on the Old Norse culture and interpretation of the poem “Olafs saga Tryggvason” in the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson. This was a direct result of his inspiration from the old sagas and mythological tales. His search for romanticism in the North and its literary and historical origins bestowed on the world rich, Icelandic translations. Hilen states,

“His natural linguistic proficiency enabled him to piece Icelandic words together when, during the course of his reading, he felt it necessary to consult the original material; but the laboriousness of this process must have persuaded him to depend almost entirely on translating.”(89). As a translator, this is a truly amazing feat. I can’t imagine being able to do this.

In addition, Longfellow received his knowledge of Icelandic literature from English, German, Swedish, and Danish versions of the poems and sagas (these translations are preserved in the Longfellow House—as of this publication, 1947).

In 1849, Longfellow wrote “The Challenge of Thor”(100 years before Marvel!—or is it DC comics?):

             Thereafter stood the gods beside the sea

            And to their feet there floated by the main

            Two trees uprooted by the storm. From them

            They fashioned men. And Odin gave to them

            Their life and soul, and Vile will to move

            And Ve the power of speaking, hearing, seeing,

            Thus was man made, and Midgard was his dwelling (97).

[It is of interest that Longfellow jotted the notation “the challenge between Thor & Christ” in the margins (Notes on Danish ballads, MS Longfellow House).]

Of all the Scandinavian literatures, the Icelandic contributed most to the romantic conception of the past which was the substance of Longfellow’s poetical life. The fact that he only had a dictionary knowledge of the language and had to substitute his imagination for scholarship is my favorite part of this part of his story.

Longfellow did much to bring Scandinavia into the American consciousness in the 19th century. Unfortunately, I did not learn of Longfellow’s Scandinavian adventures or translations when I studied his poetry in Graduate school. I stumbled upon this part of his past independently through his work The Poems and Poetry of Europe years later.  He had me at Hej.

I have been fascinated ever since [see thread of posts].

Works Cited

Andrew Hilen. Longfellow and Scandinavia: A Study of the Poet’s Relationship with the Northern Language and Literature , Yale University Press (1947).