- Excelsior (Longfellow)
Excelsior is a brief poem written and published in
1841 byHenry Wadsworth Longfellow . The famous Sam Loyd chess problem, Excelsior, was named after this poem.The poem describes a young man passing through a town bearing the banner "Excelsior" (translated from Latin as "ever higher", also loosely but more widely as "onward and upward"), ignoring all warnings, climbing higher until inevitably, "lifeless, but beautiful" he is found by the "faithful hound" half-buried in the snow, "still clasping in his hands of ice that banner with the strange device, "Excelsior!"
The poem was a staple of American readers for many years, and "A Plea for Old Cap Collier" by
Irvin S. Cobb , satirized it. His description is partly based on an illustration used in the readers. The words quoted are Longfellow's:: "The shades of night were falling fast,": "As through an Alpine village passed: "A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,: "A banner with the strange device,: "Excelsior!"
The title of "Excelsior" was reportedly inspired by the state seal of New York, which bears the Latin motto "Excelsior". Longfellow had seen it earlier on a scrap of
newspaper . [Calhoun, Charles C. (2005). "Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life", Beacon Press, 140. ISBN 0-8070-7039-4.] Longfellow's first draft, now in the Harvard University Library, notes that he finished the poem at three o'clock in the morning onSeptember 28 ,1841 . [Cahoon, Herbert; Lange, Thomas V.; Ryskamp, Charles (1977). "American Literary Autographs, from Washington Irving to Henry James", Courier Dover Publications, 34. ISBN 0-486-23548-3.]James Thurber (1894-1961) illustrated the poem in "The Thurber Carnival" in 1945.There is a Lancashire version or parody, "Uppards", written by
Marriott Edgar one hundred years later in 1941.Notes
External links
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=17&fk_files=39482 Cobb] page 17 of the
Project Gutenberg edition of "A Plea for Old Cap Collier"
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