Glimpses of Her Father's Glory: Deification and Divine Light in Longfellow's Evangeline

Henry Wadsworth Longfellows Evangeline was a bestseller in nineteenth-century America inspiring generations of readers with a heroine who overcomes colonial violence and exile in her romantic and spiritual quest across America. Long ignored by modernist scholars Evangeline is finally getting the critical attention it deserves. Drawing on original research in Longfellows scholarly manuscripts Bartel explores the theological sources and spiritual world of Evangeline arguing that Longfellow was inspired by the church fathers to craft Evangeline into a heroine who uniquely exemplifies in her epic quest the ancient Christian doctrines of deification and divine light. Bartels Glimpses of Her Fathers Glory returns Evangeline to its rightful place as a major poem of American literature one that takes as its theme nothing less than the ultimate purpose of human existence.