When was mezzo cammin written

Join today for free! Sign up with Facebook. Whose woods these are I think I know. From Dante. Purgatorio, Xxx. Purgatorio, Xxviii. Purgatorio, Ii. The title of this sonnet is also from the opening line of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, which Longfellow had actually translated. Longfellow relates to this line because he is in a period of his life where he feels he has fallen off track, and it is negatively affecting him.

He feels as though he has not accomplished what he had hoped to by this point in his life, and he is feeling somewhat regretful.

However, he sees that he cannot change the past, and though he is as close to death as he has ever been before, the subject itself is still far away, and there is still more for him to accomplish in life.

New York: Library of America, The time period that the poem was released in , during that time he was in Europe. The author feels as he has failed in because he has seen no progress in his mid-life.

Because he was a strong poet , who marked America and showed us how literature should be appreciated. You are commenting using your WordPress. And while it contemplates the passage of time and his eventual death, it implies that he still has a ways to go to reach death "far thundering from the heights", thereby giving him time to create the amazing body of poetry he planned on in his youth. I know lots of us have been there, in a very specific version of a mid-life crisis where we question whether we've followed the right path, or strayed off course in our lives.

You should know that Longfellow returned to the U. He also translated works of Dante Alighieri and Michelangelo. Clearly, his tower was built a bit later than anticipated, but it was built nevertheless. Today's Poetry Friday roundup can be found at Laura Purdie Salas's blog, which you can reach by clicking the Poetry Friday box, below:.

Tags: analysis of poems , dante , longfellow , national poetry month , poetry , poetry friday , sonnets. Post a new comment Error Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal.