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Psychology & SocietyThe Song of HiawathaHenry Wadsworth LongfellowThe Song of Hiawatha

The Song of Hiawatha

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Psychology & SocietyEnglish
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In the rhythm of a drumbeat, this long poem tells the life of Hiawatha, a hero of the Ojibwe by the shores of Gitche Gumee, the 'shining Big-Sea-Water' of…

Catalogue details

Author
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Category
Psychology & Society
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

In the rhythm of a drumbeat, this long poem tells the life of Hiawatha, a hero of the Ojibwe by the shores of Gitche Gumee, the 'shining Big-Sea-Water' of Lake Superior: his childhood with his grandmother Nokomis, who teaches him the names of the birds and animals; his fight with his father, the West Wind; his love for Minnehaha, 'Laughing Water', of the Dakota people; the famine that takes her; and his departure as the white men arrive.

Context and significance

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), the most popular American poet of his time, published the poem in 1855, drawing on Native American legends collected by the ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and borrowing its metre from the Finnish epic Kalevala. It was an enormous success, though it mixes the traditions of different peoples, and the real Hiawatha was an Iroquois leader. Readers who enjoy it often go on to his Evangeline.

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