The Song of Hiawatha

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1855

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Summary

Background

Canto Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Canto II

Cantos III-VI

Cantos VII-XII

Cantos XIII-XVII

Cantos XVIII-XXII

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Related Poems

“Invocation” by Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1827)

Indigenous writer Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, along with her husband Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, influenced Longfellow. Many of Jane Schoolcraft’s family stories are believed to have inspired Hiawatha.

“Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1860)

Another one of Longfellow’s famous epic poems, “Paul Revere’s Ride” examines the America’s revolutionary past by casting one its players as a hero of the era.

Kalevala translated by John Martin Crawford (1891)

This epic Finnish poem also inspired Longfellow’s Hiawatha, in particular its unusual form and meter. Longfellow studied this work in its original Finnish and drew on it to create his own American epic.

Further Literary Resources

“The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Song Of Hiawatha” by Henry W. Longfellow (1855)

A helpful glossary to some of the indigenous terms and phrases used in The Song of Hiawatha

“The True Story of Who Inspired Longfellow's Hiawatha” by Bidwell Hollow (2019)

This article explores the sources Longfellow drew on for The Song of Hiawatha, in particular family stories and accounts from Ojibwe poet Jane Schoolcraft

“The Origin and Development of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha” by Ernest J. Moyne and Robert S. Ward (1966)

This article discusses the popularity and lasting influence of Longfellow’s Hiawatha on the canon of American literature.

“Kalevala as a Reputed Source of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha” by Waino Nyland (1950)

Compares and contrasts these epics, looking at the degree to which the structure of the Finnish work influenced Longfellow.