ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The terms “Fireside Poets” or “Schoolroom Poets” are used to designate a group of five poets-William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell-who were popular in America in the latter half of the 19th century.

Detailed explanation-2: -The poets’ primary subjects were domestic life, mythology, and the politics of the United States, in which several of them were directly involved. The fireside poets did not write for the sake of other poets, for critics, or for posterity. Instead, they wrote for a contemporary audience of general readers.

Detailed explanation-3: -These poets’ general adherence to standard poetic forms, rhythm, meter, and rhyme made their poetry especially suitable for memorization and recitation. Their themes and their presentation of traditional and nationalist values made them popular poets to teach.

Detailed explanation-4: -Much of Longfellow’s work is categorized as lyric poetry, but he experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse. His published poetry shows great versatility, using anapestic and trochaic forms, blank verse, heroic couplets, ballads, and sonnets.

Detailed explanation-5: -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, (born February 27, 1807, Portland, Massachusetts [now in Maine], U.S.-died March 24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts), the most popular American poet in the 19th century, known for such works as The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1863).