On the Historical Integrity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” In history, many feats are told time and time again and become more grandeur with each utterance, to the point where nearly all original meaning is long lost. As Doctor Manhattan said it in Watchmen, “The illusion vanishes, almost before it has registered” (Gibbons and Moore 26). For example, with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” this certainly is the case. To suggest that the aforementioned poem is a work of historical non-fiction is a suggestion that can be simply and eloquently discredited using real documents, the face value of the piece, and simple logic. To begin, Longfellow’s poem simply is not a credible source of historical information, as there are real letters from the night of Paul Revere’s ride that contain the true sequence of events. In a letter to Jeremy Belknap; for instance, Paul Revere summarizes his actions over the course of the night. In reality, “Paul Revere’s ride” was slower paced and far more suspenseful. The poem makes no mention of the British officers that threaten to “blow Revere’s brains out” (Gilder Lehrman). In the letter, there are many more comrades along on the journey, whereas the poem suggest that Revere was a lone rider, storming into each town to alert the people at full gallop. As a result, it is ridiculous to even pose the question of the historical integrity of Longfellow’s poem when the first relevant source of information
The poem “Paul Revere's Ride” by Henry Wadsworth is mostly inaccurate, but has some similarities with what actually happened. Paul Revere’s friend did climb a church tower, and his ride took place on the night of April 18 1775. However, he did not ride alone, he did not reach Concord, and he never shouted “The British are
2. Skeptics question the authenticity of Marco Polo’s account, citing his omission of such things as the great wall, tea, and calligraphy. How important is the veracity of the narrative to our overall assessment of its value to history.
Paul Revere was famous for the warning of british troops on April 18, 1775. Sadly, this is just a poem. “Paul Revere’s Ride,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a poem incorrectly depicting the events of the fateful night.We’ll look at the Belknap Letter, a letter written by Paul Revere himself depicting what happened that night. We’ll look at the similarities and differences to see how different these two tellings of the night are and how Paul Revere was not a unique hero of the battle of Lexington.
There are similarities and differences between the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and the historical account of Paul Revere’s ride. In both texts Paul Revere went across the river to Lexington. However, they got across the river in different ways. Longfellow used history in his poem to make his poem more interesting, but he altered how he got across the river.
5. a.) Revisionism that stresses the faults of great figures can lead to an overwhelming negativity toward some great heroes who ultimately bring lessons of morality to the table. It perpetuates the idea that human beings, even the best of us, are always crawling with gaping character flaws. But, it also helps us humanize these great figures whose reputations often run away with them. It helps us to remember that political success does not equal morality. b.) This trend in historical writing alludes to a growing sense of both negativity and revolution in our society. As we begin to reject common figures of greatness and replace them with our own versions, modern-day youth culture is beginning to establish their own identity separate from current systems. This straying from the norm of decided importance implies a lack of trust or satisfaction with current
Studying history can be an active, often arduous process, dependent on making assumptions with the evidence available and proving those assumptions to be correct or otherwise. But it can also be an easy task if done incorrectly, one of cutting corners and assuming falsehoods to be true for the sake of convenience. This is the way that many historians, amateur or professional, approach history. Not only does this approach exclude any possibility for well-constructed conclusions to be made, it can also leave the populace ignorant of the truth. In “The Strange Death of Silas Deane”, James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle argue that history is not merely the act of collecting data-rather of making assumptions about the data-through the use of countless rhetorical questions, paragraph organization, and a sardonic tone.
There were several flaws, and it wasn't entirely true. After all, nobody except witnesses and those who took part in action really knew the true story. And engraving were like these pictures pretty much so they needed to hear from someone on horseback to know about what's happening around them. And Paul Revere back then was famous for that so he would be trusted by the people to hear the true news, but then back to perspective he was a colonist. And not to mention also a leader jun the Sons of Liberty! And that also reveals what type of person he was, so he would use it to is advantage. And so after he heard of the incident he went straight to work and created an engraving proving his point. And his point was that no matter what the british soldiers felt and what they did they were just completely scandalous and should be looked like that by all colonist. So revere had set to work making the massacre dramatic and showing the soldiers as monsters. And when he finished with it he made it his mission to warn all the colonist of this, and when he did it became the ¨Bloody
O’Brien’s unification of fact and fiction is to illustrate the idea in which the real accuracy of a war story is less significant than storytelling. The subjective truth about what the war meant and what it did to change the soldiers is more meaningful than the technical details of the
“The Strange Death of Silas Deane” by James West Davison and Mark Hamilton Lytle creates a new perspective on what people see history as. Although many people would define history as something that happened in the past, through “The Strange Death of Silas Deane”, the authors demonstrate that this everyday view on history can be profoundly misleading.
In 1860, less than one hundred years after the event in which it is based on, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere was immortalized in a children’s poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem became an instant classic and is mostly remembered by the opening line, “Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” Written at a time when the United States was on the brink of a Civil War, it made some accurate accounts of what happened that night however, it was a children’s poem therefore a lot of the events were distorted and dramatized. The most important being, Paul Revere was not alone on his “Midnight Ride” as the poem says. William Dawes Jr. and Dr. Samuel Prescott also rode with him that night. Whatever
Graham Greene’s “The Destructor’s”, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Rocking Horse Winner” (Both stories reprinted in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth] 111-124, 285-298) are two short stories set in post-war England. Despite the similarities of both stories set in post-war eras of Great Britain, the mood and physical settings are vastly different. In fact, the stories each give differing amounts of details and clues about the setting. For instance, “The Destructors” setting is easily discernable, but in contrast, “The Rocking Horse Winner” gives only vague clues regarding the time and setting. Regardless of the differences in the amount of details given, the
Additionally, Limerick lays forth a challenge to the “cheerful remarks about how the understanding of history will help us to understand ourselves and to cope with the dilemmas we have inherited from the past” (412); this challenge is to find out what. By remembering these stories in their full intensity and completeness, what do we gain besides a revival and restoration of the misery? The following paragraphs will clarify what is missing in much of our history and why it is a problem; they will also address the challenge put forth of what we can possibly learn
When reading literature we often attempt to use particular threads of thought or lenses of critique to gain entry into the implied historic or legendary nature of literature. To accurately process a tale in the light in which it is presented, we have to consider the text from multiple viewpoints. We must take into consideration intentional and affective fallacies and the socioeconomic circumstances of the presenter/author/narrator. We also have to consider how our personal experience creates bias by placing the elements of the story into the web of relationships that we use to interpret the external world. There also is the need to factor in other external pressures, from societal norms, cultural ideals, and psychological themes, and how
First of, “Paul Revere’s ride in 1860,during the turbulent times when the United States was on the brink of civil war.” Some of the people didn’t know how he was or anything like that he might have been a normal person. “How accurate was longfellow poem?” The author was Franklin Johnson, “Paul Revere and the American Revolution” by: Ethel Ames, and “Paul Revere’s Ride” written By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. What I have learned in the “Paul Revere and the American Revolution” was that on April 18, 1775, that Revere was sent to Lexington so he can warn the American leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British troops were on their way to arrest them and then seize weapons being stored in Concord. How it was accurate is by that
As a historian, or anyone studying to be one, one must understand who is responsible for the historical text we study every day. Lucretius did not just survive time because it was passed down, but because one single man never gave up his search. Historians praise Poggio and his correspondents for the finding, restoring, and distribution of these important texts. To understand past historians, we are to understand the correspondence between these past historians. Examining these four letters and the text by Stephen Greenblatt, “The Swerve,” will help me understand what History is. What one piece of historic information conveyed clearly by these sources most deeply qualifies, limits, undermines or eve negates what you believe to be Greenblatt’s fundamental argument