"The Song of Hiawatha"

"The Song of Hiawatha"

"The Song of Hiawatha" is an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published in 1855. It narrates the life of a Native American hero inspired by figures from Ojibwe and Dakota traditions and was written during Longfellow's residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts following family tragedies. The poem drew on sources collected by ethnographers and travelers associated with institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum, and its publication coincided with cultural currents in Victorian literature, Transcendentalism, and antebellum debates in the United States.

Background and Composition

Longfellow conceived the poem after reading translations and reports by scholars and travelers including Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, William Jones, Francis Parkman, and Elias Boudinot (Cherokee); he also consulted collections in the Library of Congress and corresponded with members of the American Antiquarian Society. Composition began after Longfellow's marriage to Fanny Appleton and the death of his first wife, events noted in his correspondence with figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The poem reflects Longfellow's familiarity with the narrative techniques of Homer, Dante Alighieri, and Ovid as mediated through the translations of Alexander Pope, John Milton, and William Shakespeare. Longfellow acknowledged his debt to scholarly editions like those prepared by Thomas Carlyle and to travelogues by John James Audubon and Lewis Henry Morgan.

Structure and Content

Written in trochaic tetrameter reminiscent of Finnish metrics used in Kalevala translations by Elias Lönnrot and influenced by ballad traditions of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns, the poem is organized into an opening invocation and multiple cantos recounting Hiawatha's birth, adventures, love, and departure. Episodes echo motifs found in the oral literatures recorded by Frances Densmore and the expedition narratives of Lewis and Clark Expedition, and include encounters with personified forces akin to accounts in The Odyssey and The Aeneid. Characters and episodes draw names and elements associated with northern North American settings such as Lake Superior, Mississippi River, and Great Lakes (North America), and reference tribes and figures studied by ethnologists like Franz Boas and Edward Sapir.

Themes and Style

Major themes include cultural contact and loss, spiritual vision and prophecy, and the civilizing mission as imagined in nineteenth-century American letters. The poem negotiates notions of identity alongside contemporary debates involving Manifest Destiny, the Indian Removal Act, and the legal frameworks of the United States Congress that impacted Indigenous nations like the Ojibwe and Dakota. Stylistically, Longfellow blends influences from Epic poetry, Romanticism, and ballad meter, employing refrains and catalogues reminiscent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the narrative pacing found in Sir Walter Scott's romances. The poem also shows an interest in comparative mythology seen in the works of Max Müller and the philological tradition represented by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm.

Reception and Criticism

Contemporaneous reviews appeared in periodicals tied to networks including the Atlantic Monthly, The North American Review, and newspapers edited by figures such as Horace Greeley and Gamaliel Bailey. Readers from cities like Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia made the poem a bestseller, influencing popular perceptions alongside other Victorian successes by authors such as Charles Dickens and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Critics praised Longfellow's melodic lines even as scholars later in the twentieth century, including William V. Spanos and scholars of Postcolonialism, reevaluated the poem for its appropriations of Indigenous material. Figures in the field of literary criticism such as Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, and Elaine Showalter have written on its place in the canon, while historians like Bernard Bailyn and David Hackett Fischer considered its cultural context.

Cultural Impact and Adaptations

The poem inspired musical settings, theatrical adaptations, and visual art in salons and institutions ranging from Carnegie Hall performances to exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Composers and arrangers connected to New England Conservatory and performers tied to the Boston Symphony Orchestra created pieces based on its episodes; illustrators influenced by Winslow Homer and Thomas Hart Benton produced pictorial sequences. Hiawatha appeared in popular culture via stage tableaux in Broadway houses, illustrated editions produced by publishers in London and Boston, and references in works by Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe. The poem's lines were set in school readers distributed across states and territories and informed travel literature about the Great Plains and Great Lakes region.

Controversies and Indigenous Perspectives

From the late nineteenth century into the present, Indigenous scholars and activists from nations including the Ojibwe, Dakota, Iroquois Confederacy, and Anishinaabe have critiqued Longfellow's treatment of sources, arguing that his synthesis reflects nineteenth-century romanticization rather than authentic transmission. Ethnographers such as Frances Densmore and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft—whose collections Longfellow used—have themselves been critiqued by Indigenous advocates and scholars like Vine Deloria Jr. and Delia Opekokew for issues of representation. Contemporary reassessments within institutions including Smithsonian Institution and university programs at Harvard University and University of Michigan emphasize collaboration with tribal historic preservation offices such as the Minnesota Historical Society and tribal cultural centers. Debates engage legal and ethical frameworks shaped by treaties like the Treaty of Ghent era diplomacy, federal policies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and modern initiatives for Indigenous cultural sovereignty exemplified by organizations like the National Congress of American Indians.

Category:American poems