The Song of Hiawatha

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider the importance of understanding the historical context for literature. How can reading a historical document in contemporary society be problematic without understanding its context? How can knowing the historical context alter our understanding and shape our perspective as the audience? Explain.

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider how understanding a work’s historical context can better shape understanding and perspective. Written during the 19th-century imperial expansion of US settlers into the Indigenous lands of the North American region, Longfellow’s epic presents a specific and stereotypical form of Indigenous persons that were widely perpetuated in literature. Furthermore, this epic espouses the biblical Christian value system, reflecting the social norms of the 19th century. Both of these points are key for understanding, as well as accurately analyzing, the intent and reception of Longfellow’s poem. Longfellow developed a specific form of writing entitled “Indian Edda” that used Scandinavian epic poetry as the structure for his particular epic. In a brief in-class activity, students may use the first resource in order to understand the historical context of Longfellow’s biography in the second resource.