Robert Frost

Classroom Issues and Strategies If students have encountered Longfellow before taking a college course, the poems they know are not in this anthology: Evangeline, The Song of Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish. The Longfellow of this anthology is our late twentieth-century "revisionist" Longfellow, and except in poems such as "A Psalm of Life," he is almost unrecognizable as a writer who might have written those famous poems. If students have not actually read Longfellow, …

…then compare their views of America; third, set his view of life and nature against that of native poets. Questions for Reading and Discussion/ Approaches to Writing 1. (a) To whom is he writing? What is his message? (b) Translate "A Psalm of Life" literally and say whether you agree or disagree. (c) What are Longfellow's favorite words? 2. How has Longfellow changed or maintained his essential view of life between "A Psalm of Life" and "Aftermath"?