What I Learned From Fireside Poetry

Three things that I learned from fireside poetry is that I learned why it was called “Fireside poetry” because in the 19th century, families would gather around the fireside to listen to the poems. They would tell their children different poems and read to them as the fire burned by their side. The warmth of the fire warmed them during the winter time as the people around the fireside listened to the inspiring poems being read to them.

Second, I learned that most of them wrote about politics, New England landscapes, and abolition. Most of them were abolitionist like John Greenleaf Whittier. These poets typically wrote about these topics, such as abolition, because it was during the time period when slavery was a huge issue and people around the U.S. nation during that time had different views. However, fireside poets were typically abolitionists because they were from the North, which hated slavery.

Third, I got to learn about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was the most popular Fireside poet at that time. He was very smart and got honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. By the time he was born, nobody believed that a writer could be successful so his father wanted Longfellow to become a lawyer just like him. He published Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Paul Reaver’s Ride, which were very successful. After the Civil War, he continued to publish several books of poetry.

Overall, these were some things that I learned about fireside poetry and it helped improve my knowledge about them. I hope to learn many knew things about different types of poets in the future, so I will be able to tell the differences between poems when I read them later on in life.