Classic fiction

The Song of Hiawatha

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

182 pages · First published 1855

Longfellow’s narrative poem follows Hiawatha through a mythic life shaped by love, conflict, nature, spiritual power, and the welfare of his people. Drawing loosely and often inaccurately from Indigenous stories collected by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the poem combines material from multiple Native traditions into a literary legend of Longfellow’s own making. Its trochaic rhythm and vivid natural imagery made it one of the nineteenth century’s most recognizable American poems. Modern readers can appreciate its literary influence while also recognizing that its portrayal of Indigenous cultures reflects appropriation, conflation, and the assumptions of its era rather than reliable ethnography.