Skip to main content

Do you see connections in writing styles or themes between Louisa May Alcott and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

Louisa May Alcott and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both write about moral heroines who are notable for their sacrifices to others. In Alcott's Little Women, Jo sells her beautiful hair to pay for her mother to visit her father during the Civil War, and her sister, Beth, dies after contracting scarlet fever while tending to a poor family's baby. Longfellow's heroine Evangeline in the poem "Evangeline" follows her beloved, Gabriel, after the British force the Acadians to leave Acadie. She then nurses the poor until she is reunited with her dying lover. The heroines in both writers' works are self-sacrificing people who are committed to altruistic values such as helping the poor, helping their loved ones and family, and disdaining beauty and wealth. These were important values in the time before and after the Civil War, as "Evangeline" was published in 1847, and Little Women was published in 1868. In addition, their heroines are strong and independent in a way that could be considered feminist by today's standards; for example, Jo in Little Women does not marry her neighbor, Laurie, but insists on working as a writer. 


The works of Longfellow and Alcott also helped contribute to and define the American culture. For example, Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," published in 1860, retold the historic journey of Paul Revere to warn townspeople in Massachusetts that the British troops were coming on the eve of the American Revolution. Little Women celebrated the sacrifice necessary for the Union to win the Civil War. Both authors defined the culture as one of patriotism, sacrifice, and commitment to a larger good. 


In addition, both authors celebrate the beauty of nature in lyrical ways--Alcott in poems such as "I Write about the Butterfly" and "The Frost-Song," and Longfellow in poems such as "Nature." "Nature" and "The Frost-Song" connect nature with the ability to soothe people's ways towards death. In their works, nature is a divine force. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more