Paul Revere's Ride Lesson Plan

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was America’s first truly national poet. Beloved in his day, his poetry still holds an important place in the canon of American romanticism and transcendentalism (although he did not identify as a member of the latter); he has been lauded for the natural rhythm and simplicity of his verse. Matthew Gartner writes that Longfellow "always wrote with his audience in mind, paternally consoling and uplifting them in lyrics, ballads, odes, sonnets, verse dramas, and the long narrative poems whose characters became hallmarks of American culture: Evangeline, Hiawatha, the Puritan maiden Priscilla, the midnight-riding Paul Revere. The essential note of his...