The Courtship of Miles Standish

A scene from The Courtship of Miles Standish, showing Standish looking upon Alden and Mullins during the bridal procession

The Courtship of Miles Standish is an 1858 narrative poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the early days of Plymouth Colony, the colonial settlement established in America by the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Overview

Priscilla Mullins, illustration from a 1903 printing

Set against the backdrop of a fierce Indian war, the tale focuses on a love triangle among three Pilgrims: Miles Standish, Priscilla Mullens, and John Alden. Longfellow claimed the story was true, but the historical evidence is inconclusive. Nevertheless, the ballad was very popular in nineteenth-century America, immortalizing the Mayflower Pilgrims.

The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) was a literary counterpoint to Henry Longfellow's earlier Evangeline (1847), the tragic tale of a woman whose lover disappears during the deportation of the Acadian people in 1755. Together, Evangeline and The Courtship of Miles Standish captured the bittersweet quality of America's colonial era. However, the plot of The Courtship of Miles Standish deliberately varies in emotional tone, unlike the steady tragedy of Longfellow's Evangeline. The Pilgrims grimly battle against disease and Indians, but are also obsessed with an eccentric love triangle, creating a curious mix of drama and comedy. Two bumbling, feuding roommates, Miles Standish and John Alden, vie for the affections of the beautiful Priscilla Mullins, who slyly tweaks the noses of her undiplomatic suitors. The independent-minded woman utters one of the most famous retorts ever: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" The saga has a surprise ending, one full of optimism for the American future.

Analysis

A debate persists as to whether the tale is fact or fiction. The main characters, Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins, have names of real-life Pilgrims. Henry Longfellow was a direct descendant and claimed that he was relating oral history. Skeptics dismiss his saga as a folktale, but no conclusive evidence exists either way.

At minimum, Longfellow used poetic license, condensing several years of events. Scholars have confirmed the cherished place of romantic love in Pilgrim culture,[1] and have documented the Indian war described by Longfellow.[2] Circumstantial evidence of the love triangle also exists. Miles Standish and John Alden were likely roommates;[3] Priscilla Mullins was the only single woman of marriageable age.[2] The families of the alleged lovers remained close for several generations, and intermarried, moving together to Duxbury, Massachusetts in the late 1620s.[4] Descendants still retell the love triangle of their ancestors.

Composition and publication history

Longfellow was a descendant of the Plymouth Pilgrims, including John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, through his mother, Zilpah Wadsworth.[5] The first reference to the poem recorded in Longfellow's journal is dated December 29, 1857, where the project is originally referred to as "Priscilla". By March 1 the next year, it was renamed The Courtship of Miles Standish.[6]:88

It was published in book form on October 16, 1858;[6]:89 it sold 25,000 copies after two months.[7] Reportedly, 10,000 copies were sold in London in a single day.[8]

Critical response

Editor and critic George Ripley liked the play's "native" scenes and "beautiful characters" but complained that Priscilla's speeches sounded like dense orphic sayings and that Longfellow could not capture the "Yankee realism of speech".[9]

The meter of the Courtship of Miles Standish is dactylic hexameter, the same meter used in classical epic poetry such as the Iliad and the Odyssey by the Greek poet Homer, and the Aeneid by the Roman poet Vergil. Longfellow used the same meter in his poem Evangeline.

See also

The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923 film)

References

  1. ↑ Daniels, Bruce C. (1995). Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Early New England. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0312125003.
  2. 1 2 Philbrick, Nathaniel (2006). Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. Penguin. ISBN 0670037605.
  3. ↑ Goodwin, John A. (1888). The Pilgrim Republic (1920 ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
  4. ↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
  5. ↑ Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Portrait of an American Humanist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966: 3.
  6. 1 2 Williams, Cecil B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1964.
  7. ↑ Blake, David Haven. Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2006: 73. ISBN 0-300-11017-0
  8. ↑ Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952: 523.
  9. ↑ Crowe, Charles. George Ripley: Transcendentalist and Utopian Socialist. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1967: 248.

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