Emma and Eginhard (Longfellow’s Works)
Case 6 Figure 5b (32b)
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Figure 5b. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882). The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. [Boston, Houghton-Osgood and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1879]. Excerpt from Tales of a Wayside Inn. 'A Student's Tale: Emma and Eginhard.' artist: F. Dielman, and engraver: W.J. Dana
This is a two-volume set with beautifully engraved illustrations, that was issued in thirty parts for subscription, and page continuously. The cover is made of heavy tooled leather with gold embossing, gilded pages, and detail, and glossy marbled end papers in maroon, pink and blue. The multiple engravings are drawn and executed by a variety of artists and engravers.
'Tales of a Wayside Inn' (1863) is a collection of narrative poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow based on a structural tradition similar to Boccacio's Decameron, Marguerite de Navarre's L'Heptameron, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The tales are told by a group of people huddled around the hearth of a New England tavern, and strongly reflect Longfellow's scholarly fascination with the Middle Ages. Several "students tales" are included among the various narratives contained in this work.
'Emma and Eginhard' is a student's tale of love between Eginhard (Eginhard, 770-840) and the daughter, Emma, of the emperor Louis I. Eginhard was a Frankish court diplomat, scholar, friend and biographer of Charlemagne, and was taught by Charlemagne's chief educational minister, Alcuin (735-804). Alcuin was an English monk in charge of the literacy of the Frankish nobility. He was well-versed in the Latin classics and the written works of Boethius and Cassidorus on the liberal arts. Alcuin ran the palace school at the court of Aachen, and utilized a cathechetical method of instruction with his students. As educational advisor to Charlemagne, his recommendation was enacted. His educational legislation required that every abbey conduct a school for instructing boys to read, write, sing, do arithmetic, and Latin grammar. Eginhard continued in the role of educational administrator of the school in the court of Aachen after Alcuin's death.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet, translator, and college professor, and a prolific writer who achieved a high level of popularity, and gained a wide audience for his work. Born of New England stock, he attended Bowdoin College in Maine, and went abroad to supplement his study of foreign languages. Upon his return he taught romance languages at Bowdoin College, and after another trip to study abroad was hired as the chair of modern languages at Harvard.
Among his well-known poetic works which contain themes and motifs about education are: The Children's Hour, The Village Blacksmith, and A Psalm of Life. Longer narratives include Evangeline, The Golden Legend, Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Tales of a Wayside Inn. Rooted in literature, his work includes a great deal of information about local history, daily life and customs, and is highly informative and didactic. For example, 'Hiawatha' presents the Native American worldview, emphasizing an education more along the lines of natural history, physical training in hunting and gathering, astronomy, and oral history. 'The Children's Hour' depicts the fatherly role in the care and raising of the child, an excerpt from 'The Village Blacksmith' depicts children in the journey to and from school, and 'Psalms of Life' express the didactic and moral lessons of daily life.