Henry Wadsworth Longfellow scholar Bruce Southard will deliver the lecture “Longfellow Friends and Rivals” on Thursday, May 15, at 7 pm at the New Lebanon Library. This program is free and open to the public.
Perhaps no period in human history produced more famous authors and literature than the period spanning Longfellow’s life. Using his life and poems as the timeline, this presentation introduces Longfellow’s contemporaries, authors such as Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman. Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Irving, Bryant, Lowell, Thoreau, Holmes and Wilde, his interaction with them and samples of his and their writing. All materials are recited in the rich oral tradition ensconced in 19th through mid-20th century education (but the audience need not worry; there will be no homework assignments!). Behind the scenes stories help illustrate each poem, and there may be a surprising work or two known to all who attend.
Bruce B. Southard was born and raised in Hancock, MA, then spent 23 years living and working in and around New York City. Southard holds a BFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and an MBA from The Isenberg School of Business, UMASS Amherst. He currently works for Eldorado Resorts Corporation. Southard is a professionally trained Podium Presenter for Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Berkshires of Massachusetts.
The New Lebanon Library is located at 550 State Route 20, ¼ mile north of the yellow blinking light at the intersection of Routes 20/22.