The origin of Longfellow’s ‘The Warning

Bartel discusses the origin of The Warning by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. On 20 November 1842, Longfellow, newly returned from Europe, wrote to his Father: 'On the passage home I wrote some poems on Slavery, which I shall publish shortly in a pamphlet...There are only eight in all and I hope yo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Notes and queries 2018-09, Vol.65 (3), p.377-378
Main Author: Bartel, Timothy E G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Authorship
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882)
Poetry
Thompson, Lawrance
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Bartel discusses the origin of The Warning by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. On 20 November 1842, Longfellow, newly returned from Europe, wrote to his Father: 'On the passage home I wrote some poems on Slavery, which I shall publish shortly in a pamphlet...There are only eight in all and I hope you will like them. While the composition of the first seven of these poems was as Longfellow suggests 'written on his return voyage from Europe--the eighth and most highly regarded poem, 'The Warning', has a more complicated origin hitherto unacknowledged by critics. In his 1938 Young Longfellow, Lawrance Thompson explains that 'The Warning' is a selection from a poem Longfellow wrote for the Phi Beta Kappa Society in the early 1830s.
ISSN:0029-3970
1471-6941
DOI:10.1093/notesj/gjy058