ESU English Professor Recently Published

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce that Jeffrey Hotz, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the English department, has recently been published.

Dr. Hotz has published a book titled Longfellow’s Imaginative Engagement: The Works of His Late Career, published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and the University Copublishing Division of Rowman & Littlefield. This academic monograph is a first-of-its-kind study of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s late-career poems and biography from 1861 until 1882, covering the poet’s posthumous publications and the handling of his literary estate. It is currently available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and through Rowman & Littlefield.

Using never-before-discussed archival materials from Harvard’s Houghton Library and the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, including unpublished poems and poem fragments, this literary biography presents Longfellow’s vibrant and complex final two decades. After the tragic death of his beloved second wife, Frances (Fanny) Elizabeth Appleton, Longfellow reinvented himself as a creative artist, transforming his loss and the nation’s suffering in the Civil War and postwar period into compelling art.

In this book, Dr. Hotz interprets the distinct phases of Longfellow’s late career, exploring his narrative poetry, translations, personal lyrics, religious poetry, aesthetic verse, and end-of-life vision of mortality as a journey. He considers Longfellow’s friendships and family life, publication strategies and literary reputation, and the recurrent theme of longing for an ideal female figure in his poems and private life. Interweaving unpublished poems and poem fragments with interpretations of published collections, Longfellow’s Imaginative Engagement examines the poet’s complex voice which captured the public’s imagination, making him America’s most famous poet in the 19th century.

Hotz is a graduate of George Washington University where he received a Ph.D. He received a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown University.

For more information about the book or the English department at ESU contact Dr. Hotz by calling (570) 422-3315 or email jhotz@esu.edu.

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