The Courtship of Miles Standish (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- First Published: 1858
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Love or romance, New England, Native Americans or American Indians, Seventeenth century, Soldiers, Pilgrims or pilgrimages, Massachusetts Bay Colony
- Locales: Plymouth, MA
The Courtship of Miles Standish is another historical narrative poem; this time Longfellow turns to the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation for his material, and he once more softens the harshness of his subject and makes it accessible to his audience. The meter he chose for the poem is dactylic hexameter, but it has none of the monotony of Evangeline; it is very loosely structured and at times seems on the edge of prose. It also has none of the heroic treatment of Evangeline or The Song of Hiawatha. It is really a romantic drama, not an imitation of Greek or...
[The entire page is 1211 words long]
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