Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"In 1860, the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow family celebrated Christmas at Craigie House, their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The publication of Longfellow?s classic Revolutionary War poem, ?Paul Revere?s Ride, ? was less than a month hence, and the country?s grave political unrest weighed heavily on his mind. Yet with his beloved wife, Fanny, and their five adored children at his side, the delights of the season prevailed. In present-day Boston,...

"Award-winning poet Mary Jo Bang has translated the Inferno at a moment when popular culture is so prevalent that it has even taken Dante, author of the fourteenth-century epic poem The Divine Comedy, and turned him into an action-adventure video game hero. Dante wrote his poem in the vernacular, rather than in literary Latin. Bang has similarly created an idiomatically rich contemporary version that is accessible, musical, and audacious. She?s matched...