American_Literature_Book_unit3
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Expanding Your Knowledge
PERSONAL RESPONSE
IRVING’S LIFE
1.What is Irving’s significance for American literature?
2.Search for the hidden meaning of the name “Tarrytown.” How does it fit into Irving’s literary portrait?
3.Replace these subtitles by subdividing Irving’s biography into the coherent parts: In the
Family Circle, Toward a Mature Writer, Welcome Back Home.
RIP VAN WINKLE
1.What epithets are chosen to describe the Kaatskill mountains? What details tie the story to a certain historical period?
2.What traces of military language can you find in the story? What could be the reason for their inclusion?
3.What else could we have expected from Rip Van Winkle besides the mysterious twentyyear sleep? Do you sympathize with, criticize or feel otherwise toward him?
4.Why is the expression sole domestic adherent used to refer to a dog in paragraph 4? What other more natural synonyms can you think of? What else does the least flourish
of a broomstick or ladle stand for? What is ironic in Rip’s address to Wolf in par. 8?
5.What was his first surprise on approaching the village? How important is the portrait of King George III? What did Rip think had happened? How did Rip Van Winkle’s family change over the years?
6.What is the narrator’s point of view? How does he treat his characters?
7.Compare W. Bradford and W. Irving according to their style of writing. How would you define the author’s purpose for both of them?
8.Single out all the plot phases. Which one is most informative? Amusing? Descriptive?
9.How do you imagine the speaker? To what degree is his presence felt in the narrative?
10.Order the Events from the story:
a)Rip Van Winkle’s daughter recognizes him.
b)In despair Rip goes squirrel hunting in the mountains.
c)Rip sees a strange looking man with a barrel.
d)Rip helps to wait on the party of ninepins players.
e)He tastes the liquor in the flagon.
f)On the way back to the village Rip became aware of his foot-long beard.
g)Rip Van Winkle is reunited with his children and community.
h)He falls asleep.
i)With difficulty Rip finds his house.
WRITING WORKSHOP
zMake use of available resources to write a short essay on what social life was like in the American Colonies in the 18th century.
zWrite a personal letter, as if you were Rip, telling about this unusual experience.
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis of character than the native warrior of North America. In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-
devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste.
James Fenimore Cooper
zRecall your impressions of reading Cooper before. What strength does he possess as a writer?
An American novelist, historian, and social critic, Cooper is most famous for the Leather-Stocking Tales, of which the best known is The Last of the Mohicans. Modern readers are fascinated with his dramatizations of the long-lasting American conflicts between
nature and law, order and change, wilderness and civilization; all of these are best revealed at the American frontier.
James Fenimore Cooper (Sept. 15, 1789, Burlington, New Jersey — Sept. 14, 1851, Cooperstown, New York), the son of Quakers’ Judge William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper,
was about a year old when the Coopers moved to the frontier village of Cooperstown, founded by Judge Cooper. James delighted in the freedom of wealth and wilderness, and so marked was this effect that later he was expelled from Yale University for frivolity and pranks. As a common seaman he was then sent to Europe to prepare for a naval career.
On his return in 1808, Cooper entered into the Navy. Three years later he married Susan Augusta De Lancey from a powerful New York Tory family, and shortly thereafter, due to a large inheritance from his father, he quit the naval career.
His first novel Precaution (1820), examining English high society, appeared because of a bet with his wife that he could write a better book, than those in circulation. Though the work was a failure, Cooper had found his vocation, and his next novel, The Spy (1821), in which he created Harvey Birch, a humble spy for the American revolutionaries, was highly rated.
Cooper’s next work, The Pioneers (1823), promoted his reputation, both at home and abroad, and started his LeatherStocking series, which have become classics of American literature. They tell of the adventures of the American forester-frontiersman Natty Bumppo (also called Leather-Stocking & Hawkeye) and his Indian companion Chingachgook. The story starts with the last-published work in the series — The Deerslayer (1841), which shows young Bumppo in the Lake Otsego region. The Last of the Mohicans follows Natty’s heroic deeds against the Huron Indians in the Lake Champlain region. The Pathfinder (1840) tells of Bumppo’s
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adventures in the French and Indian War, and his love; The Pioneers portrays Natty and Chingachgook as old men; and The Prairie (1827) pictures Bumppo’s last days, as a trapper on the Great Plains, where he was driven by the destruction of the forests in the East.
Cooper has yet another literary asset — he created the first sea novel, The Pilot (1824), filled, like the forest tales, with rapid action and strongly contrasted characters.
Critics have often been too sharp toward Cooper’s literary faults, especially his careless and pompous language, though nowadays they are beginning to discover the complex internal designs that made Cooper’s work admired by such writers as Goethe, Balzac and Conrad for his inventiveness and pioneering use of American materials.
The Pioneers
from Chapter XXII
For a week, the dark covering of the Otsego was left to the undisturbed possession of two eagles, who alighted on the centre of its field, and sat proudly eyeing the extent of their undisputed territory. During the presence of these monarchs of the air, the flocks of migrating birds avoided crossing the plain of ice, by turning into the hills, and apparently seeking the protection of the forests, while the white and bald heads of the tenants of the lake were turned upward, with a look of majestic contempt, as if penetrating to the very heavens with the acuteness of their vision. […]
At each step the power of the winds and the waves increased, until, after a struggle of a few hours, the turbulent little billows succeeded in setting the whole field in an undulating motion, when it was driven beyond the reach of the eye, with a rapidity, that was as magical as the change produced in the scene by this expulsion of the lingering remnant of winter. Just as the last sheet of agitated ice was disappearing in the distance, the eagles rose over the border of crystals, and soared with a wide sweep far above the clouds, while the waves tossed their little caps of snow into the air, as if rioting in their release from a thraldom of five months duration.
The following morning Elizabeth 1 was awakened by the exhilarating sounds of the martins, who were quarrelling and chattering around the little boxes which were suspended above her windows, and the cries of Richard,2 who was calling, in tones as animating as the signs of the season itself.
“Awake! awake! my lady fair! the gulls are hovering over the lake already, and the heavens are alive with the pigeons. You may look an hour before you can find a hole, through which, to get a peep at the sun. Awake! awake! lazy ones! Benjamin 3 is overhauling the ammunition, and we only wait for our breakfasts, and away for the mountains and pigeon-shooting.” There was no resisting this animated appeal, and in a few minutes Miss Temple and her friend descended to the parlour. The doors of the hall were thrown open, and the mild, balmy air of a clear spring morning was ventilating the apartment, where the vigilance of the ex-steward had been so long maintaining an artificial heat, with such unremitted diligence. All of the gentlemen, we do not include Monsieur Le Quoi,4 were impatiently waiting their morning’s repast, each being equipt in the garb of a sportsman. Mr. Jones
made many visits to the southern door, and would cry.
1Elizabeth Temple, daughter of Judge Marmaduke Temple, the founder of Templeton and its chief landowner; at the outset of the story she returns from four years at school.
2Richard (Dickon) Jones, the sheriff, a cousin of Judge Temple; he superintends “all the minor concerns of Temple’s business.”
3Benjamin Penguillan (called Ben Pump), former sailor, “major-domo” or steward under Jones. One of his charges at the Templeton house is to keep the stove in the parlor hot in winter.
4Once a West Indian planter, now a refugee because of the French Revolution.
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“See, cousin Bess! see, ’duke!1 the pigeon-roosts of the south have broken up! They are growing more thick every instant. Here is a flock that the eye cannot see the end of. There is food enough in it to keep the army of Xerxes 2 for a month, and feathers enough to make beds for the whole county. Xerxes, Mr. Edwards,3 was a Grecian king, who
— no, he was a Turk, or a Persian, who wanted to conquer Greece, just the same as these rascals will overrun our wheat-fields, when they come back in the fall. — Away! away! Bess; I long to pepper them from the mountain.” [XX]
Amongst the sportsmen was to be seen the tall, gaunt form of Leather-stocking, who was walking over the field, with his rifle hanging on his arm, his dogs following close at his heels, now scenting the dead or wounded birds, that were beginning to tumble from the flocks, and then crouching under the legs of their master, as if they participated in his feelings, at this wasteful and unsportsmanlike execution.
Leather-stocking was a silent, but uneasy spectator of all these proceedings, but was able to keep his sentiments to himself until he saw the introduction of the swivel into the sports.
“This comes of settling a country,” he said — “here have I known the pigeons to fly for forty long years, and, till you made your clearings, there was nobody to scare or to hurt them. I loved to see them come into the woods, for they were company to a body; hurting nothing; being, as it was, as harmless as a garter-snake. But now it gives me sore thoughts when I hear the frighty things whizzing through the air, for I know it’s only a motion to bring out all the brats in the village at them. Well! the Lord won’t see the waste of his creators for nothing, and right will be done to the pigeons, as well as others, by-and-by. — There’s Mr. Oliver, as bad as the rest of them, firing into the flocks as if he was shooting down nothing but the Mingo 4 warriors.”
Among the sportsmen was Billy Kirby, 5 who, armed with an old musket, was loading, and, without even looking into the air, was firing,
and shouting as his victims fell even on his own person. He heard the speech of Natty, and took upon himself to reply.
“What’s that, old Leather-stocking!” he cried; “grumbling at the loss of a few pigeons! If you had to sow your wheat twice, and three times, as I have done, you wouldn’t be so massyfully feeling’d to’ards the divils. — Hurrah, boys! scatter the feathers. This is better than shooting at a turkey’s head and neck, old fellow.” 6
1short for “Marmaduke,” the judge
2Xerxes the Great (519-465 b.c.) was king of Persia (486-465 b.c.).
3Oliver Edwards, a mysterious young stranger.
4In the Leather-stocking novels set in New York, the Mingos (Iroquois) are made out to be the “bad Indians” while the Delawares are the “good Indians.”
5a wood-chopper
6In an earlier chapter Natty Bumppo had beaten Kirby in a turkey-shooting contest.
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“It’s better for you, maybe, Billy Kirby,” returned the indignant old hunter, “and all them as don’t know how to put a ball down a rifle-barrel, or how to bring it up ag’in with a true aim; but it’s wicked to be shooting into flocks in this wastey manner; and none do it, who know how to knock over a single bird. If a body has a craving for pigeon’s flesh, why! it’s made the same as all other creaters, for man’s eating, but not to kill twenty and eat one. When I want such a thing, I go into the woods till I find one to my liking, and then I shoot him off the branches without touching a feather of another, though there might be a hundred on the same tree. But you couldn’t do such a thing, Billy Kirby — you couldn’t do it if you tried.”
“What’s that you say, you old, dried cornstalk! you sapless stub!” cried the wood-chopper. “You’ve grown mighty boasting, since you killed the turkey; but if you’re for a single shot, here goes at that bird which comes on by himself.”
The fire from the distant part of the field had driven a single pigeon below the flock to which it had belonged, and, frightened with the constant reports of the muskets, it was approaching the spot where the disputants stood, darting first from one side, and then to the other, cutting the air with the swiftness of lightning, and making a noise with its wings, not unlike the rushing of a bullet. Unfortunately for the wood-chopper, notwithstanding his vaunt, he did not see his bird until it was too late for him to fire as it approached, and he pulled his trigger at the unlucky moment when it was darting immediately over his head. The bird continued its course with incredible velocity.
1823 (22)
Expanding Your Knowledge
PERSONAL RESPONSE
COOPER’S LIFE
1.What are Cooper’s literary distinctions? Why are his heroes so popular?
2.What was the reason for his public estrangement?
3.What are his literary innovations?
THE PIONEERS
1.Cooper provides us with a rich description of the setting. What were the time and place of the event?
2.Why is Mr. Jones so urging the company? What does the choice of weapons tell of the villagers?
3.How different is Natty Bumppo from the rest of the shooters?
4.How different is Natty’s speech from that of the wood-chopper’s? By what means does Cooper achieve this contrast?
5.What can be conclued about Natty Bumpoo’s attitude toward Nature?
6.How would you characterize Cooper’s diction?
7.Choose the right word for each of the eight gaps out of the given nine: noised, commenced, flocks, ringing, woods, pointed, mounted, extinct, shot.
a)Large ... of wild geese were seen passing over the country.
b)In a few moments the attack ... .
c)The miniature cannon had been released from the rest, and ... on little wheels.
d)On the morning of the Fourth of July, it would be heard, with its echoes ... among the hills, and telling forth its sounds, for thirteen times.
e)The gun was ... on high.
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f)The wonderful exploit of Leather-Stocking was ... through the field with great rapidity.
g)Wasn’t the ... made for the beasts and birds to harbour in?
h)The passenger pigeons are ..., the last known specimen dying in 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden.
WRITING WORKSHOP
zThink of an ending to this episode. Go through the whole extract again, paying attention to figures of speech, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., and write it down as if it were done by Cooper. Then compare it with the original of The Pioneers.
zInvent a scene from Cooper’s childhood and shape it in a story, adding more characters,
description, dialogue, and, of course, some pranks on James’ behalf.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude after one’s own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
zRecall the authors who found inspiration in Nature. What are their works like?
Emerson is often quoted as a defender of the inner divine powers of an individual. This dominant thought penetrates his every major work such as Self-Reliance, where he called upon his countrymen to trust themselves,
to “accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.” He also maintained that man’s mind and spirit are like God’s; and by seeing through the workings of Nature, of which everyone is a part, we can discover our own selves.
A poet, essayist, lecturer, and public speaker, Ralph Waldo Emerson
(May 25, 1803, Boston — April 27, 1882, Concord, Massachusetts) graduated from Harvard College as an ordinary student, but at an early age he delighted in putting down his thoughts and famous quotations in his diary, which grew to “the saving bank” for his later writing. He taught at school, tried his pen in fiction and verse, read up on theology and entered Harvard Divinity School.
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Emerson often traveled to the South |
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for his health and, as junior pastor, |
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preached in the Boston area. He married |
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a young woman, Ellen Tucker, just after |
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receiving his appointment as pastor of |
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the Second Church of Boston, but their |
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happiness was cut short by her death in |
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1831. The next year Emerson left the |
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pulpit and traveled extensively in Europe. |
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Back in America, he launched a |
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career of a public speaker, and after a |
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second marriage he moved to the rustic |
Emerson’s journal |
Concord. The couple’s own house |
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became a welcoming place for writers and conversationalists such as William Channings, Louisa Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau and others. This prominent group made Concord a kind of “the Athens of America.”
In 1836, Emerson’s first book Nature saw print, setting forth the major guidelines for Transcendentalism. In 1841, Emerson produced some of his best writings, The Over-Soul, Compensation and Self-Reliance, which contain the finest aphorisms to be found in American literature, e.g. “To be great is to be misunderstood,” “Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world,” “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience,” “There’s no road that has not a star above it.” These three masterpieces, published collectively as Essays, firmly established his literary reputation. His elaborate style and masterly sentences are referred to as a treasure trove of a perfect union of language and thought.
Nature
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood. […]
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I
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feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
On July 4, 1837, a monument was unveiled in Concord, Massachusetts. There, in 1775, the American Minutemen had fought against the British in one of the first battles of the Revolutionary War.
1836 (x)
Hymn Sung at the Completion
of the Concord Monument,
April 19, 1836
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood,
4And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept
8 Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem, 12 When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, or leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare
16 The shaft we raise to them and thee.
1836 (26)
Expanding Your Knowledge
PERSONAL RESPONSE
EMERSON’S LIFE
1.How was education important in the Emersons’ tradition?
2.Have you ever kept your own “saving bank”? What thoughts could be trusted to it? What thoughts could Emerson have put in his diary?
NATURE
1.Why do people usually look at the stars they wish to be alone? How would people respond if the stars appeared only once in a while? What does this suggest about human nature?
2.In Emerson’s view, how do grown-ups and children differ according to how they view nature? What explanation does Emerson suggest for this difference?
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3.What, do you think, is the difference between the meanings a writer and a scientist find in nature?
4.Try to define the style of this essay.
HYMN
1.What events are referred to in the Hymn? What purpose will the monument serve?
2.What does the poet ask in the last lines? Who is praised in this poem?
3.Emerson uses a figure of speech called metonymy such as shot (line 4). Identify other examples where one word represents a related notion, and state their role in the poem.
4.What tone does the repetition of r sound create in the first line? Identify more examples of consonance.
WRITING WORKSHOP
zIf Emerson were to travel through your own countryside, what could he write of Nature there? Write an informal essay.
zIf Emerson should have delivered a speech instead of Hymn, what might it have been like? Write a short speech for this or any other memorable occasion.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
We can make
our lives sublime, And, departing,
leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
zWhat American mythical heroes created by Longfellow do you know?
zDo you think being a poet was a reputable occupation in the mid-19th century?
zWhile reading, fit the subtitles back into the biography
—Years at Home, The First Profession,
From Bowdoin to Harvard, Within a
Family, Later Years.
Few writers have understood people better than Longfellow did or have given them so much pleasure they could take to their hearts. Poem after poem strengthen his popularity both in the United States and in Europe. Longfellow had an exceptional ability — the power of mythmaking, of creating figures that would forever become a part of American fiction.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807, Portland — March
24, 1882, Cambridge, Massachusetts) grew up in a cultivated atmosphere, where books added scholarliness to the picturesque countryside of Maine. While in the country, he thirstily listened to live accounts of Grandfather Wadsworth about the Indian warfare chieftains and their.
As a student, Longfellow led a quiet life, and by his senior year had published numerous essays and poems in the American Monthly Magazine and the United States Literary Gazette.
On graduating from Bowdoin in 1825, Longfellow wrote his father, “I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature. ... Surely there never was a better opportunity offered for the exertion of literary talent in our own country than is now offered.” “A literary life,” his father objected, “to one who has the means of support, must be very pleasant. But there is not enough wealth in this country to afford sufficient encouragement and patronage
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to merely literary men.” The elder Longfellow wanted his son to study law, but when an offer of a professorship of modern languages came from Bowdoin, provided Henry would study for a time abroad, his father agreed.
Longfellow spent the years 1826-1829 traveling in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, which laid the foundation for his mastery not only of the languages and literatures of those countries, but also of Swedish, Finnish, Dutch and Portuguese, as well as the classical languages, Old English and Provençal.
Longfellow held his professorship at Bowdoin from 1829 till 1835; in 1831, he married the beautiful and frail Mary Potter of Portland. Thoughtful efforts to secure a better academic position, linked with his success as a teacher at Bowdoin, finally culminated in his appointment as professor of modern languages at Harvard in 1835, and again he left for a period of further study abroad, concentrating on German and the Scandinavian languages. His trip, however, was heavily saddened by Mary’s sudden death. He stayed on in Europe, and the winter in Heidelberg brought him into contact with the sentimentality of romantic German literature, whose mood appealed both to his nature and to his loss.
In 1836, Longfellow began teaching at Harvard. He was a popular figure on campus, and dressing stylishly, with a sense of humor, was well liked by his students. His own writings and his perfect knowledge of foreign literatures earned him the friendship of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sumner the U.S. statesman, Oliver Wendell Holmes the U.S. poet, novelist, essayist, and physician, and James Russell Lowell the U.S. poet, essayist, and diplomat, who made Cambridge and Boston so remarkable.
The practice of translation polished Longfellow’s verse technique beyond that of any American contemporary. His editing of The Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845), an anthology that included many of his own translations, was an important milestone in American literature, acquainting Americans with foreign verse forms.
Longfellow resigned from Harvard to devote himself solely to writing and published several works in the next few years, notably The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems
(1858) and The Song of Hiawatha (1855). The latter is especially distinguished for its trochaic meter, which Longfellow adapted from the Finnish epic Kalevala.
Longfellow’s six children were born in Craigie House, and he shared with his readers his love for them in the charming domestic idyll of Children’s Hour (1860). But he wasn’t safe from another tragedy.
One day, Fanny, his second wife, was sitting at her writing desk, cutting off pieces of their daughters’ hair to be sent to their aunts. Setting each curl into an envelope, she sealed it with a drop of wax from a lighted candle.
It was a hot summer day, and Mrs. Longfellow was wearing a light dress. Suddenly the candle flame caught a corner of her sleeve, and the flames fanned out toward her face. Henry Longfellow heard her screaming and rushed to her. In panic, covered with flames, Fanny dashed toward him. He seized a rug and wrapped it around her as she fainted.
By the next morning she died. Henry Longfellow mourned her deeply; and the burns on his own face were so bad that he had to grow a beard, being unable to shave.
At the time of his wife’s death, Longfellow was at work on Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), a collection of stories in verse, and he managed to finish it after the tragedy. The first poem, Paul Revere’s Ride, became a national favorite. Written in anapestic tetrameter meant to suggest the galloping of a horse, this ballad portrays a hero of the American Revolution and his famous midnight ride to warn the Americans about the British attack on Concord.
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