The song of Hiawatha

Type

Book

Authors

H. W. Longfellow ( Longfellow, H. W. )

Kiddell-Monroe

Tags

Hiawatha -- active 15th century -- Poetry, Hiawatha -- active 15th century, Hiawatha, Iroquois -- Poetry, Indigenous poetry, Iroquois -- Chiefs, Indigenous peoples -- Legends, Iroquois

Abstract

"Hiawatha was the first product of Longfellow's leisured middle age, after he had resigned his Harvard professorship. Its tripping unrhymed measure, based on a Finnish verse-form, came easily from his pen, and the whole 5,000 lines were written in less than a year. Hiawatha, a legendary Red Indian hero, personifies the progress of civilization among the natives of North America. Son of the West Wind, Mudjekeewis, he has magic powers, learns the language of animals, marries Minnehaha, one of the Dakotahs, and teaches his peoples the arts of peace. The romantic beauty of the legends, with their melodious native names, has made the simple Indian epic the most popular of Longfellow's longer poems."--Book jacket.

Number of Copies