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The Federalist Papers (1787–1789)

The Federalist Papers are a collection of essays that were written between 1787 and 1789, and which aimed to convince the states to band together in ratifying the newly drafted U.S. Constitution. Taken together, these eighty-five papers constitute a powerful work of American political philosophy that’s rooted in European Enlightenment thought. For students interested in understanding the post-revolutionary political landscape and how it shaped the world that Longfellow lived in a century later, the Federalist Papers are key.

Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing”

Like Longfellow, Whitman wrote this poem on the eve of the American Civil War with an eye toward galvanizing northern readers. Whitman’s poem uses a musical conceit to offer an optimistic vision of American unity. Though different from Longfellow’s poem in tone, subject matter, and structure, “I Hear America Singing” nonetheless shares with “Paul Revere’s Ride” an impetus to shed light on what makes the United States uniquely what it is.

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

Longfellow wrote this poem near the end of his life, when he was evidently contemplating death and the meaning of existence. In this regard, “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” is a very different kind of poem than the narrative-driven “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Even so, Longfellow employs many of the same formal techniques in these poems, including the use of accentual verse. For students interested in how similar uses of meter, rhyme, and structure can have radically different poetic effects, it’s worth studying these poems together.

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