I'm going to have to call off the school-wide search- I know you guys were looking everywhere for them.
So anyways, Longfellow is a pretty interesting poet. What I found particularly characteristic of his writing was that he made references to many minority populations in the United States that were not perceived as "true Americans" in the 1800s. Longfellow was an Early Romantic, and like many other people from this sub-category, he attempts to develop an American tradition and heritage. In "The Jewish Cemetary at Newport," for example, he juxtaposes the still cemetery with the wild ocean just a short distance away. However, his tone is almost sympathetic with the Jewish people, and he wonders why they have been persecuted in both Europe and America:
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate;
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'er the sea-- that desert desolate--These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
Besides being a wonderful opportunity to blockquote, this quotation makes reference to the Exodus of the Bible.
Longfellow was an open abolitionist, and his views on the topic of slavery are best expressed by "The Slave's Dream, " in which he describes a slave, so lowly in America, dreaming about the royal life he would be living if in Africa. In the end, Longfellow takes a surprising turn by revealing that the slave has died, but that his death has released him from his physical shackles and allowed him to roam into the paradise he has dreamed of. This optimistic perspective on death is comparable to Bryant's "Thanatopsis," in which Bryant describes how death is the just the next phase of life, in which one "wraps the drapery of his couch About/him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."
Longfellow also talks about America's oldest group, the Native Americans (of the Ojibway tribe), in "The Song of Hiawatha." Keep in mind that this in an epic poem, so if you plan to read it be sure to set aside a couple of hours/days. This seems like a reliable website, for all of you adventurous readers: http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/hiawatha.html
1 comment:
Hey, it's Erin.
YAY IAN!!!!!!!!!
Romantic poets seemed to have a very positive view of death, as one of rest or relief. Longfellow addresses death again the "Goblet of Life," when he describes life as the "alarm, the struggle, the relief, then sleep we side by side." I suppose this view was meant to be comforting, but the suggestion that life is nothing but struggle which ends in death (which is peace) I found a little depressing.
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