The Song of Hiawatha — Reading Notes

Repetition as Structural Device

Longfellow relies heavily on repeated phrases and parallel syntax to build momentum and reinforce key images. In the excerpt from 'The Son of the Evening Star,' the lodge 'began to tremble, / Straight began to shake and tremble,' and the transformation is described through a series of anaphoric lines: 'And behold! the wooden dishes / All were changed to shells of scarlet! / And behold! the earthen kettles / All were changed to bowls of silver!' This pattern recurs throughout the poem, creating a incantatory effect that mimics the storytelling traditions Longfellow drew upon. The repetition also serves a mnemonic function, helping listeners—or readers—follow the episodic structure.

Shifts in Narrative Pace

The poem's pace varies markedly between sections. In the opening 'Introduction,' the lines are expansive and questioning, with long lists of natural details that slow the reader down. By contrast, the action sequences—such as the hunting of Pau-Puk-Keewis or the death of Kwasind—move more quickly, with shorter lines and more verbs. The excerpt from 'The Son of the Evening Star' demonstrates a middle pace: the transformation scene is described in a series of rapid, vivid images ('All were changed to shells of scarlet!'), but the dialogue that follows, with Osseo's father speaking in measured couplets, returns to a slower, more reflective tempo. These shifts in pace help distinguish between moments of spectacle and moments of moral or emotional weight.

Voice and the Embedded Narrator

Longfellow employs a layered narrative voice. The 'Introduction' is spoken by a first-person narrator who claims to be passing along stories he has heard: 'Should you ask me, whence these stories?' This framing device creates a sense of authenticity, as if the poem is transcribed oral tradition. Within the main narrative, characters often tell their own tales, as when Osseo's father recounts the backstory of the Evil Spirit. These embedded narratives introduce shifts in voice—from the omniscient third-person of the main story to the direct speech of the characters. The result is a polyphonic texture that complicates the idea of a single authorial voice, even as Longfellow's consistent meter and diction unify the whole.

Readers approaching The Song of Hiawatha should attend to the interplay between its oral-tradition framing and its literary craft. The poem rewards attention to its rhythmic patterns, its use of repetition as both ornament and structure, and the way its narrative voice shifts between the impersonal and the intimate. The editor's introductory note provides useful context about Longfellow's sources, but the poem itself offers a distinct experience that is neither pure folklore nor mere imitation.

Reading about Hiawatha’s long fasting in the woods, I remembered sitting with my grandfather during his final winter, both of us silent, waiting. The drumming rhythm of Longfellow’s verse felt like that stillness — and later, A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul — Inside the Classic gave me the same ache, that slow, honest turning over of one’s own soul in the dark. Some books are just companions for that.