Wednesday Wisdom

WHO

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most celebrated American poets of the 19th century. Born on February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, where he was classmates with literary giant Nathaniel Hawthorne and is considered the first renowned poet of the United States.

After college, he traveled through Europe to study languages and literature, an experience that deeply influenced his poetic style. He later became a professor at Harvard University, where he taught modern languages.

Longfellow's poetry is known for its lyrical beauty, accessible language, and themes of American history, mythology, and moral values. He gained massive popularity during his lifetime, becoming the first American to truly make poetry a respected profession and was the first American to have a bust in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner in London alongside legends like Shakespeare and Chaucer.

America legacy

Looking west, while standing in Newport Oregon, the majestic Pacific Ocean with its vastness spreads as far as the eye can see. Turing towards the east, a green sign announces Boston, Massachusetts, a mere 3,655 miles away along Route 20. Perhaps not as celebrated as the famous route 66, Route 20 is the longest road in the United States and meanders through Oregon into Idaho, Montanna, Wyoming through Nebraska mirroring the Oregon Trail of westward expansion. Route 20 runs through Iowa and into Chicago, Illinois and offering a diversity of ocean, lake mountain and urban landscapes. Continuing east through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York state and then across the width of Massachusetts, Route 20 finally comes to a rest in Kenmore Square at the foot of Fenway Park. Between New York and Boston, the road is named as the Boston Post Road. Before getting into Boston, Route 20 passes through the suburb town of Sudbury. Just off the road sits a famous 300-year-old inn previously known as the Red Horse inn later renamed the Wayside Inn.

April 19, 1775, marks the beginning of the American Revolutionary War with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. It remains a state holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts known as Patriots Day and is celebrated by The Boston Marathon and a 11 AM Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

On April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride from Boston to Lexington to warn local militias of the British Army’s advancement memorialized by the quote “One if by land, two if by sea”.

In 1862 Henry Wordsworth Longfellow began compiling a book of his poems inspired by The Canterbury Tales and his stay at an inn located in Sudbury along with several friends. Canterbury Tales is medieval book chronicling Christian pilgrims traveling from London to the shrine of Thomas Beckett written by Chaucer. Longfellow’s book was published in 1863 and is of a series of stories/poems told by a group of fictional characters staying at a real place, the Red Horse Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts with all the characters inspired by his friends while staying at the inn.

Capturing the American spirit

The best-known story/poem in “The Tales of the Wayside Inn” is “Paul Reveres Ride” which is told by the fictional innkeeper and commemorates this famous piece of American history. The poems begins,

“Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”

it finishes with,

“So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm,— A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

Longfellow’s influence was not just his poetry but his ability to identify a unique America identity of patriotism and moral philosophy through the lens of history. In "Paul Revere’s Ride", Longfellow creates a legend out of a real person, but with an idealized sense of bravery, civic duty, and the ethical imperative to act for his fellow countrymen.

Thanks, Dad, for the gift of curiosity!

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.