Hiawatha
'Hiawatha' Summary
Longfellow drew some of his material from his friendship with Ojibwe Chief Kahge-ga-gah-bowh, who would visit at Longfellow's home. He also had frequent encounters with Black Hawk and other Sauk people on Boston Common, and he drew from Algic Researches (1839) and other writings by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an ethnographer and United States Indian agent, and from Heckewelder's Narratives. In sentiment, scope, overall conception, and many particulars, Longfellow insisted, "I can give chapter and verse for these legends. Their chief value is that they are Indian legends."
Longfellow had originally planned on following Schoolcraft in calling his hero Manabozho, the name in use at the time among the Ojibwe of the south shore of Lake Superior for a figure of their folklore who was a trickster and transformer. But he wrote in his journal entry for June 28, 1854: "Work at 'Manabozho;' or, as I think I shall call it, 'Hiawatha'—that being another name for the same personage." Longfellow was following Schoolcraft, but he was mistaken in thinking that the names were synonymous. The name Hiawatha is derived from a historical figure associated with the League of the Iroquois, then located in New York and Pennsylvania. The popularity of Longfellow's poem nevertheless led to the name "Hiawatha" becoming attached to a number of locales and enterprises in the Great Lakes region.
Book Details
Author
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
United States
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Di...
More on Henry Wadsworth LongfellowDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Magnificent in its scale and scope, this monumental poem by the blind poet John Milton was the first epic conceived in the English language. It descri...
The Wanderings of Oisin by William Butler Yeats
The Wanderings of Oisin is a poignant and beautifully written poem that explores themes of love, loss, and the passage of time. It remains one of Yeat...
The Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius
The Argonautica was an adventure for the poet, one of the major scholars of the Alexandrian period – it was a bold experiment in re-writing Homeric ep...
The Odyssey by Homer
A wandering king who's a war-hero doomed to roam the earth by a vengeful God, a plethora of fantastic experiences, a wife battling the invasion of sui...
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs by William Morris
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs is an epic poem of over 10,000 lines by William Morris that tells the tragic story, drawn...
The Ballad of the White Horse by Gilbert K. Chesterton
The Ballad of the White Horse is a poem by G. K. Chesterton about the idealised exploits of the Saxon King Alfred the Great. Written in ballad form, t...
The Epic Of The Bharatas Mahabharata Romesh Chunder Dutt by Vyasa
The Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. It narrates the struggle between two groups of...
L' Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló
Endinsa't en un món mític i misteriós amb "L'Atlàntida" de Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló. Aquesta èpica poesia et portarà a un viatge èpic a través del t...
Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Metamorphoses is an 8 AD Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. Comprising 11,995 lines, 15 books and over 250 m...
Paradise Regained by John Milton
Paradise Regained is a poem by English poet John Milton, first published in 1671. The volume in which it appeared also contained the poet's closet dra...
Reviews for Hiawatha
No reviews posted or approved, yet...