Image. An image is language that creates a concrete representation of an object or an experience. Notice the images that Longfellow uses to describe the blacksmith.
Alliteration. The repetition of initial consonant sounds is called alliteration. Watch for examples of alliteration in this poem.
|
“The Village Blacksmith” was first published in an 1841 collection called Ballads and Other Poems. At the time of the poem’s publication, Longfellow was a professor at Harvard. His poetry collections had begun to make him famous, not only in America but also in England. Sweet, romantic, didactic, and occasionally gripping in their retellings of stories from history or legend, Longfellow’s poems appealed greatly to the tastes of the day. “The Village Blacksmith” is a narrative poem that tells the story of a common man, honest and hard-working, whose strength and positive attitude matched the popular notion of the ideal citizen of the young, unsophisticated country.
What do you think you might like to do for a living? What do you imagine your workday would be like?
|
