Hiawatha’s Inspiration, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
“In the bird’s-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoof-prints of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle!

“All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
In the moorlands and the fen-lands,
In the melancholy marshes;
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!” [...]

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882

From ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ in ‘The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’ Vol. II (1886).

Précis

It was from the natural world, Longfellow repeats, that Nawadaha learnt the tales that he then passed on to the poet. All that followed came from the varied terrain of the Native Americans, from the birds and the beasts that dwell there; they it was who sang to Nawadaha of Hiawatha, and Nawadaha sang to the poet.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Where did Nawadaha get his tales from?

Suggestion

The wild animals told them to him.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Hiawatha was a real person. Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha’ is fiction.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IHead. IIHistory. IIIImagine.

Précis

Questions for Critics

Sevens

Jigsaws

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