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The Origin and Development of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Ernest J. Moyne*
Affiliation:
Department of English, University of Delaware

Extract

In his scholarly paper about the origins and writing of Longfellow's Hiawatha, Professor Moyne includes a whole canto which the poet decided at the last moment to omit from his completed work. Because its theme — the American Indian — is an all- American theme and because Longfellow himself enjoyed such rich relationships, both personal and literary, with peoples of Hispanic cultures, it seems particularly appropriate that the Journal of Inter-American Studies should be the first to present this hitherto unpublished canto to its readers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1966

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References

page 157 note 1 MS letter to his mother dated November 9, 1823, Houghton Library, Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.

page 158 note 2 MS Journal, November 11, 1827, on deposit at the Houghton Library.

page 158 note 3 Samuel Longfellow, The Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1886), 134.

page 160 note 4 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Works, III, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1886), 103106 Google Scholar.

page 161 note 5 MS Journal, May 26, 1846. On deposit at the Houghton Library.

page 161 note 6 MS. On deposit at the Houghton Library.

page 161 note 7 John E. Englekirk, “Notes on Longfellow in Spanish America,” Hispania, XXV, 3 (October 1942), 295-300.

page 162 note 8 La creación de un continente, Paris, Paul Ollendorff [1913], p. 80.

page 162 note 9 MS letter, July 8, 1880 (Bogotá). On deposit at the Houghton Library.

page 162 note 10 John E. Englekirk, A literatura norteamericana no Brasil (Mexico, 1950), p. 14.

page 163 note 11 MS Journal, Houghton Library.

page 163 note 12 MS Journal, Houghton Library.

page 163 note 13 Ibid.

page 165 note 14 Works, 111, 290-292.

page 165 note 1 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Boston: Lee and Shebard, 1883), p. 322. Longfellow was interested in the Indians from his boyhood on and wrote some poems on Indian subjects long before Hiawatha. As his interest in the Indians increased with the years, however, he began to think of a major work on the natives of America. Our concern in this article is only with the more immediate origin of his “Indian Edda.” See NOTE at the conclusion of this article for some other versions of the way in which Longfellow came to write Hiawatha.

page 165 note 2 Austin, Longfellow, p. 323.

page 166 note 3 Journal, June 22, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 166 note 4 Journal, June 5, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 166 note 5 Journal, June 6, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 166 note 6 Longfellow to Summer, June 25, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 166 note 7 Journal, June 25, 1854 (MÍS, Houghton Library).

page 166 note 8 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 166 note 9 Journal, June 26, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 167 note 10 Journal, June 28, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 167 note 11 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 167 note 12 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 167 note 13 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 167 note 14 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 167 note 15 Journal, July 25, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 167 note 16 Journal, July 28, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 167 note 17 Journal, July 31, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 168 note 18 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 168 note 19 Journal, August 1, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 168 note 20 Journal, August 2, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 168 note 21 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 168 note 22 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 168 note 23 Journal, October 5, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 169 note 24 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 169 note 25 Journal, October 19, 1854 (MB, Houghton Library).

page 169 note 26 Journal, October 20, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 169 note 27 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 169 note 28 MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 169 note 29 Emmanuel Vitalis Scherb, a German poet and friend of Longfellow.

page 169 note 30 Journal, November 13, 1854 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 170 note 31 The cantos completed between the end of November and March 18 were “Hiawatha's Fasting,” “Hiawatha's Childhood,” “The Peace-Pipe,” “Hiawatha's Sailing,” “Hiawatha's Fishing,” “The White Pearl-Feather,” “Hiawatha's Wooing,” “The Blessing of the Cornfields,” “The Ghosts,” “The White Man's Foot,” and “The Famine.” See MS, “The Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 170 note 32 Journal, March 21, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 170 note 33 Longfellow to Fields, March 21, 1855. See Jean C. S. Wilson and David Randall (eds.), Thirteen Author Collections of the Nineteenth Century, I (New York: Privately printed for Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950), 240.

page 170 note 34 Journal, March 23, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 170 note 35 MS, “Song of Hiawatha” (Houghton Library).

page 170 note 36 Journal, April 15-22, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 170 note 37 Copy of a letter from Longfellow to Freiligrath, April 25, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 171 note 38 Journal, May 11, 1855 (M|S, Houghton Library).

page 171 note 39 Journal, June 5, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 171 note 40 Longfellow to Fields, July 19, 1855 (MS, Huntington Library, San Marino, California).

page 171 note 41 Journal, July 24, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 172 note 42 Longfellow to Fields, July 26, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 172 note 43 Longfellow to Fields, July 26, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 172 note 44 Longfellow to Fields, July 26, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 172 note 45 Journal, July 31, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 172 note 46 Fields to Longfellow, August 23, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 172 note 47 Journal, September 20, 1855 (MS, Houghton Library).

page 173 note 48 See “Mudjekeewis” (MS, Houghton Library).

page 174 note 49 See “The Summer Maker” (MS, Houghton Library).

page 174 note 50 “The Wrestling of Kwasind” was to be Canto XXI according to Longfellow's early plan. It was the canto which perplexed Longfellow as late as September 20, 1855, when he decided to suppress it.