Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I nd my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
4.14.4 Reading and Review Questions
1. What allusions to Jewish history, life, and culture does Longfellow make
in “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport”? How much understanding of
Jewish life and culture on Longfellow’s part do these allusions suggest?
How might his readers relate to these allusions? Why?
2. Of all the immigrants to America, why does Longfellow focus on the Jews
in “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport?” What might have America oered
these Jews similar to/unlike immigrants from other nations? How, if at
all, does Longfellow connect the Jews with the Old World (and the Dead)
even as they rest in the New World? Why does he do so?
3. How and why does Longfellow complicate the refrain in “My Lost Youth?”
4. How has Longfellow regained his lost youth? What are the benets of his
having done so? The detriments?
5. In “A Psalm of Life,” why does the Young Man address the Psalmist? Why,
and how, does the Young Man “correct” the views or words of the Psalmist?
4.15 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
(1807–1892)
John Greenleaf Whittier contributed to the continuing and growing call for
a national literature through his works on New England folklore and history.
He set his most accomplished poem, “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll” (1866), in
his childhood home, a farm in the Merrimack Valley. His American voice was
sentimental and moralistic; it was also sharp, detailed, and simple.
The simplicity may have been inuenced by his Quaker faith; this faith
certainly inuenced his sense of public duty. Beginning in 1828, Whittier wrote
for such important newspapers and journals as The American Manufacturer,
New England Weekly Review, and The National Era; he also helped found the
Atlantic Monthly. Over the course of his public life, Whittier published hundreds
of journal articles, pamphlets, essays, and poems on such important social issues
as labor conditions and Abolition. In 1833, he served as a delegate to the National
Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia. He also was elected to the Massachusetts
legislature, founded the Liberty party, and ran for Congress. In 1835, while on a
lecture tour, he and the British abolitionist George Thompson were attacked by an
armed mob. Though shot at, they escaped unharmed.
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