“The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

English IIIC. Edge

CHS

“The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”

CONCEPT TERMS

• meter• foot• iambic meter• annotation

meter

• Meter is the pattern of syllables in a poem. Some syllables are stressed, meaning you emphasize them, and some are unstressed, meaning you do not emphasize them.

• The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is what makes a poem’s meter.

foot

• A foot is a metrical unit of poetry made of at least one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable.

• In “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls,” each foot contains one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

• This pattern is called iambic meter.

• Here is an example of iambic meter from everyday speech:

I have to go to school today.I hope I don’t forget my lunch.

• The underlined syllables in the above example are stressed, and the others are unstressed. Do you see the unstressed/stressed pattern?

• Most of the poem you are about to read follows this same pattern. – However, in the first line, Longfellow pairs two stressed

syllables together (The tide falls), which is called a spondee.

annotating a poem

• An annotation is simply a note about a text. Making notes about a poem while you read can improve your understanding of the poem’s structure and meaning.

• To annotate a poem, write down the meaning of unfamiliar words and try to paraphrase difficult lines, or re-state them in your own words.

• Write any questions or comments that you have.

• DIRECTIONS: Scan the meter of the following passage from “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.” Use symbols to identify all of the stressed ( ´ ) and unstressed ( ˘ ) syllables.

The tide rises, the tide falls,The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; Along the sea-sands damp and brownThe traveler hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls. (lines 1–5)

“THE CROSS OF SNOW”BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

CONCEPT TERMS

• sonnet• Petrarchan or Italian sonnet• octave• sestet

Elements of a Sonnet Chart

• A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter. – The Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet consists of an

eight-line octave followed by a sestet. – The octave introduces the poem’s subject and the

sestet responds to it.

“The Cross of Snow” is an example of a Petrarchan Sonnet with a rhyme scheme of:

ABBA ABBA CDE CDE

The Turn

• This is where the ideas shift or change in the sonnet. In a Petrarchan Sonnet, this typically happens in the shift from the octave to the sestet.

• Octave:– About the saintly wife who has died.

• Sestet:– About the cross of snow that is constantly seen on the

mountain and the cross (literal and figurative) that he constantly wears on his chest (over his heart).

Thomas Moran, The Mountain of the Holy Cross, 1875 7'x5' Oil

The Mountain of the Holy Cross began as a myth and became a rumor. Then it became a report, a photograph, and a painting. In time it became a destination for pilgrims and tourists. Shortly after that it ceased to exist....

In the beginning Americans who heard of, travelled to, and documented the Mountain of the Holy Cross believed in omens, signs and symbols. By the time the sign collapsed and disappeared, those beliefs too were eroded but not lost. We still have the expedition records, the memoirs, the photographs and the paintings and can sense, distantly, what our ancestors felt when first glimpsing this strange vision that could only be see from the east covering a mountainside in the far west.

Analyzing VisualsMount of the Holy Cross

Thomas Moran1. What details in the painting help draw the viewer’s

attention to the cross of snow?

2. What time of day do you think the artist is depicting in the painting? Use details from the painting to support your answer.

3. How does the artist show the very high elevation of the cross of snow?

4. Discuss the details in the landscape you think would make a trip to Mount of the Holy Cross difficult.

Mount of the Holy Cross Thomas MoranThe Cross of Snow Henry Wadsworth LongfellowANALYZING THE PAINTING AND THE SELECTION

1. How is the painting connected to the selection?

2. Contrast the moods of the painting and the poem.

3. How is the cross in the painting similar to the symbolic cross on Longfellow’s breast?

4. On a separate sheet of paper, discuss the way in which the painter and the poet have each used the symbol of the snowy cross. How has each one used the symbol to inspire emotion? Use details from the painting and poem to support your answer.

Tone

• What is the tone of the poem?– sadness/unending grief

• How do we know?• Content and diction– The poem is about a wife who has died and the

pain he has felt for the past 18 years.– Words: martyrdom, sleepless

Inversion

• Inverting the natural word order of sentences in order to create rhythm or rhyme in poetry.

• What examples of inversion can be found in this poem?

• Why were these inversions used?