The Jewish Cemetery at Newport (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)

At a glance:

The Poem

“The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” is a lyric meditation in fifteen rhymed quatrains. The title indicates the location where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow focuses his reverie on time, history, and death. As in the tradition of English meditative poetry of the eighteenth century, the poem at once paints a visual portrait of the cemetery yet also uses the place as a way to explore the poet’s own reflections.

The poem is set in Newport, Rhode Island, at the oldest Jewish burial ground in America, one long since abandoned. It is written from the perspective of a...

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