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Book SynopsisHenry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poems are filled with powerful heroines, from Evangeline, the exiled wanderer, to Vittoria Colonna, the aging genius of the Italian renaissance. In The Heroines of Henry Longfellow: Domestic, Defiant, Divine, Timothy E. G. Bartel provides a survey of Longfellow’s major heroines, placing them in the context of Longfellow’s body of work and the poet’s interests in theology, politics, and history. Though Longfellow’s heroines have sometimes been dismissed as mere domestic caricatures, Bartel argues that Longfellow’s heroines are nothing of the sort. Instead, they provide us with unique pictures of how one’s individual talents and desires can be harmonized with the Christian ideals of communal justice, ethical living, and ultimate union with the Divine.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Lives Infused with Light
Chapter One: The Early Heroines: Preciosa, The Teacher, The Quadroon Girl
Chapter Two: Evangeline: The First Masterpiece
Chapter Three: The Middle Heroines: Elsie, Nokomis, Minnehaha, Priscilla
Chapter Four: Interlude: The Perspicacity of Beatrice
Chapter Five: The Later Heroines: Edith, The Mother, Elizabeth
Chapter Six: The Last Heroine: Vittoria Colonna
Chapter Seven: Domestic, Defiant, or Divine?
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