"The Wreck of the Hesperus ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"" is a narrative poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in ""Ballads and Other Poems"" in 1842. It is a story that presents the tragic consequences of a sea captain's pride. On an ill-fated voyage in winter, he brings his daughter aboard ship for company. The captain ignores the advice of one of his experienced men, who fears that a hurricane is approaching. When the storm arrives, the captain ties his daughter to the mast to prevent her from being swept overboard. She calls out to her dying"
"Those who had nothing to climb onto quickly succumbed to hypothermia. The ship was still burning when it sank at 3:00 a.m. According to legend, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was scheduled to travel on the ""Lexington""'s fatal voyage, but missed it due to discussing the merits of a recent poem, The Wreck of the Hesperus, with a publisher. The poem also included a ship sinking. One of the passengers who was lost in the catastrophe was the noted radical minister and abolitionist Karl Follen (1796–1840). The disaster was depicted in a celebrated colored lithograph by Currier and Ives, and was"
"the child, but dies herself. The poem has inspired the titles of a variety of popular culture entities. For example: it was the inspiration for a 1944 Mighty Mouse cartoon of the same name, and Wreck of the Hesperus is the name of an Irish doom/drone metal band. The Pleasure Island amusement park in Wakefield, Massachusetts (1958 - 1970), 18 miles south-west of the site where the fictional ""Hesperus"" sank, featured a ride named ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"". The rock band Procol Harum included their song ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"" on their album ""A Salty Dog"", released in"
"ship that foundered during the same storm. “The Wreck of the Hesperus” is based on two events: an actual shipwreck at Norman’s Woe, after which a body like the one in the poem was found, and the real wreck of the Hesperus, which took place near Boston. Despite that fact, the poem is so well known that the loop road leading close to Norman’s Woe from Route 127 is named Hesperus Ave. In December 1839, Longfellow wrote in his diary about the writing of ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"": ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"" was adapted into films of the"
"of Troy according to Stesichorus'). Scholars are divided as to whether or not it accurately depicts incidents described by Stesichorus in his poem ""Sack of Troy"". There is, for example, a scene showing Aeneas and his father Anchises departing 'for Hesperia' with 'sacred objects', which might have more to do with the poetry of Virgil than with that of Stesichorus. Stesichorus Stesichorus (; , ""Stēsikhoros""; c. 630 – 555 BC) was the first great lyric poet of the West. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres but he is also famous for some ancient traditions about"
"Felicia Hemans rather than to Longfellow). Additionally, in Kevin Sullivan's 1985 film of ""Anne of Green Gables"", a character recites ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"" prior to Anne's rousing rendition of ""The Highwayman"". ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"" is also mentioned in the 2017 Woody Allen film ""Wonder Wheel"". ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"" is referenced in the comic song ""Lydia the Tattooed Lady"" by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, performed by Groucho Marx in the movie ""At the Circus"" (1939); by Virginia Weidler in ""The Philadelphia Story"" (1940); by Robin Williams in ""The Fisher King"" (1991); by Kermit the"
"Descent of Perithous The Descent of Perithous (, ""Peirithou katabasis"") is a fragmentary epic poem that was ascribed to Hesiod by the 2nd-century CE geographer Pausanias. The eponymous topic of the poem would have been the myth of Theseus and Perithous' trip to Hades seeking to win Persephone as bride for Perithous. During the expedition, Hades trapped the heroes by seating them in the ""chairs of forgetfullness"", and only Heracles could save them. One tentatively assigned papyrus fragment survives which includes a conversation between Meleager and Theseus. It is also possible that this fragment belongs to the ""Minyas"", and the"
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald ""The Wreck of the ""Edmund Fitzgerald"""" is a song written, composed, and performed by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot to commemorate the sinking of the bulk carrier SS ""Edmund Fitzgerald"" on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Lightfoot drew his inspiration from ""Newsweek"" article on the event, ""The Cruelest Month"", which it published in its November 24, 1975, issue. Lightfoot considers this song to be his finest work. Appearing originally on Lightfoot's 1976 album ""Summertime Dream"", the single version hit number 1 in his native Canada (in the ""RPM"" national singles survey) on November 20,"
"same name in 1927 and 1948. The title phrase is sometimes used colloquially to indicate a disheveled appearance. For example, in the film ""The Big Circus"" (1959), one character tells another: ""I didn't bring the rain, and you're beginning to look like the wreck of the Hesperus."" The poem has also been mentioned in other works. For example, in the 1975 Australian film, ""Picnic at Hanging Rock"", the headmistress forbids a student from participating in a school outing because she has failed to memorize lines from the poem (although in the original novel, the headmistress wrongly attributes the poem to"
"Hyperion (poem) Hyperion is an abandoned epic poem by 19th-century English Romantic poet John Keats. It is based on the Titanomachia, and tells of the despair of the Titans after their fall to the Olympians. Keats wrote the poem from late 1818 until the spring of 1819, when he gave it up as having ""too many Miltonic inversions."" He was also nursing his younger brother Tom, who died on 1 December 1818 of tuberculosis. The themes and ideas were picked up again in Keats's """", when he attempted to recast the epic by framing it with a personal quest to"
"difference, in the ""Thebaid"" ""lies the germ of all the allegorical poetry"". Thebaid (Latin poem) The Thebaid (; ) is a Latin epic in 12 books written in dactylic hexameter by Publius Papinius Statius (AD c. 45 – c. 96). The poem deals with the Theban cycle and treats the assault of the seven champions of Argos against the city of Thebes. Based on Statius' own testimony, the ""Thebaid"" was written AD c. 80–c. 92, beginning when the poet was around 35, and the work is thought to have been published in 91 or 92. According to the last verse"
"Hercules (Seneca) Hercules or Hercules furens (""The Mad Hercules"") is a ""fabula crepidata"" (Roman tragedy with Greek subject) of c. 1344 lines of verse written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Lycus was exiled for his crimes by Creon the father-in-law of Hercules and king of Thebes. Hercules being at that time away in the underworld, where he had gone to seek out Cerberus as the final labour assigned him by Eurystheus through Juno's hatred. Here he found Theseus, who had made a descent into the regions of Pluto in company of Pirithous with the intention of carrying off Proserpine. Lycus seized"
"existence of an independent Hesiodic poem on the descent of Theseus and Perithous is complicated by the fact that elsewhere Pausanias attributes the myth to the ""Minyas"". The sheer number of Hesiodic papyri that have survived compared to those of other works of archaic epic, however, lends credence to the attribution to the Hesiodic corpus. Descent of Perithous The Descent of Perithous (, ""Peirithou katabasis"") is a fragmentary epic poem that was ascribed to Hesiod by the 2nd-century CE geographer Pausanias. The eponymous topic of the poem would have been the myth of Theseus and Perithous' trip to Hades seeking"
"The Convergence of the Twain ""The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the ""Titanic"")"" is a poem by Thomas Hardy, published in 1912. The poem describes the sinking and wreckage of the ocean liner ""Titanic"". ""Convergence"" consists of eleven stanzas (""I"" to ""XI"") of three lines each, following the AAA rhyme pattern. Hardy was asked to compose a poem to be read at a charity concert to raise funds in aid of the tragedy disaster fund. It was first published as part of the souvenir program for that event. One interpretation is that Hardy's controversial poem contrasts"
"Stasinus According to some ancient authorities, Stasinus () of Cyprus, a semi-legendary early Greek poet, was the author of the ""Cypria"", in eleven books, one of the poems belonging to the Epic Cycle that narrated the War of Troy. According to Photius others ascribed it to Hegesias (or Hegesinus) of Salamis or elsewhere even to Homer himself, who was said to have written it on the occasion of his daughter's marriage to Stasinus. At Halicarnassus, according to an inscription found in 1995, local tradition ascribed it to a local poet, a ""Kyprias"" (Κυπρίας). The ""Cypria"", presupposing an acquaintance with the"
"Cypria The Cypria ( ""Kúpria""; Latin: ""Cypria"") is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature, which has been attributed to Stasinus and was quite well known in classical antiquity and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the ""Cypria"" comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and is followed by that of the ""Iliad""; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven"
"Norman's Woe Norman's Woe is a rock reef on Cape Ann in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about 500 feet offshore. It has been the site of a number of ship wrecks including the “Rebecca Ann” in March, 1823 during a snowstorm. Another was the wreck of the schooner “Favorite” out of Wiscasset, Maine, in December 1839. It is the subject of an 1872 painting ""Off Norman's Woe,"" by Edward Moran. In fiction, it is the site of ""The Wreck of the Hesperus"", a narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Its maximum elevation is 23 feet (7 meters), but much of the reef"
"Robert Herrick (poet) Robert Herrick (baptised 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674) was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is best known for ""Hesperides"", a book of poems. This includes the ""carpe diem"" poem ""To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"", with the first line ""Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"". Born in Cheapside, London, he was the seventh child and fourth son of Julia Stone and Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith. He was named for his uncle, Robert Herrick (or Heyrick), a prosperous MP for Leicester, who had bought the land Greyfriars Abbey stood"
"Thebaid (Latin poem) The Thebaid (; ) is a Latin epic in 12 books written in dactylic hexameter by Publius Papinius Statius (AD c. 45 – c. 96). The poem deals with the Theban cycle and treats the assault of the seven champions of Argos against the city of Thebes. Based on Statius' own testimony, the ""Thebaid"" was written AD c. 80–c. 92, beginning when the poet was around 35, and the work is thought to have been published in 91 or 92. According to the last verse of the poem, Statius wrote the ""Thebaid"" over the course of a"
"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (poem) ""Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"" is an ecphrastic poem by the 20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams that was written in response to ""Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"", traditionally attributed to Pieter Bruegel. Williams first published the poem as part of a sequence in ""The Hudson Review"" in 1960, subsequently using the sequence as the basis for his final book, ""Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems"", published in 1962. The poem, as indicated by the title, touches upon the Greek tragedy of Icarus, the story in which Icarus, the son of"
"The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream, sometimes subtitled as ""A Vision"" instead of a dream, is an epic poem written by the English Romantic John Keats. Keats composed ""The Fall of Hyperion"" by reworking, expanding, and personally narrating lines from his earlier fragmented epic poem ""Hyperion"". The poem was abandoned before Keats's death. The poem begins with lyrical argument to introduce the work. In it, the narrator introduces the idea that the poem could be either a dream or a vision, and is unsure of which. The poem is divided into three scenes before"
"Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ""Odes"" as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: ""He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."" Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (""Satires"" and ""Epistles"") and caustic iambic poetry (""Epodes""). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in"
"Emperor Frederick II. Dietrichs Flucht Dietrichs Flucht (Dietrich's Flight) or Das Buch von Bern (The Book of Verona) is an anonymous 13th-century Middle High German poem about the legendary hero Dietrich von Bern, the legendary counterpart of the historical Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great. It is part of the so-called ""historical"" Dietrich material and is closely related to, and always transmitted together with, a second Dietrich poem, ""Die Rabenschlacht"". A Heinrich der Vogler is named as author in an excursus of the poem. Earlier scholarship considered him to be the author of ""Dietrichs Flucht"" and possibly also of ""Die Rabenschlacht"","
"dare not hold the spear and sword and fine shield to save their skin, all bow and kiss my knee, calling me master and great king"". Hybrias Hybrias () (fl. 6th century BC) was a Cretan mercenary and lyric poet. He was the author of a highly esteemed skolion (drinking song), called the ""spear-song"", which has been preserved by Athenaeus (XV, pp. 695–696), Eustathius of Thessalonica (""Commentary on the Odyssey"", p. 47 & p. 276) and the ""Greek Anthology"". In this piece, Hybrias proclaimed himself a great warrior: ""I have great wealth — a spear, a sword and a fine"
"Edwin Atherstone Edwin Atherstone (1788–1872) was a poet and novelist. His works, which were planned on an imposing scale, attracted some temporary attention and applause, but are now forgotten. His chief poem, ""The Fall of Nineveh"", consisting of thirty books, appeared at intervals from 1828 to 1868. It narrates about war waged by the coalition of many nations led by Median prince Arbaces and Babylonian priest Belesis against the tyrannical king of Assyria Sardanapalus, who defeated in many battles burns his own palace and dies within. He wrote also ""Israel in Egypt"" (1861), ""The Last Days of Herculaneum"" (1821), ""Abradates"
"by an anonymous Milesian poet, but he himself judges that it was most likely by Carcinus of Naupactus; Pausanias' reasoning is open to doubt. It is not known how long the poem was. In current critical editions, only ten lines of the poem's text survive. Pausanias records that the poem was ""written about women""; fewer than a dozen other fragmentary references give indications as to the content, but they tend to suggest that the content was largely genealogical. These two facts combined suggest similarities with the pseudo-Hesiodic poem the ""Catalogue of Women"". More than half of the surviving fragments are"
"Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil () in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ""Eclogues"" (or ""Bucolics""), the ""Georgics"", and the epic ""Aeneid"". A number of minor poems, collected in the ""Appendix Vergiliana"", are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His ""Aeneid"" has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome since the time of its composition. Modeled after Homer's ""Iliad"""
"Der Untergang der Titanic Der Untergang der Titanic, or, in English, The Sinking of the Titanic, is an epic and allegorical poem by the German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger, first published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 1978. The poem is primarily about the failure of Western civilization as an enterprise, a point which Enzensberger makes explicitly in the passage about Icelanders, who, when their properties are threatened by volcanic lava flows, endeavour to stem the inexorable tide with hoses: Similarities and parallels have been frequently drawn between this poem and T. S. Eliot's ""The Waste Land"", not only in terms of"
"Wreck of the Hesperus"" (beside it), the red, white and blue (above them); the cities of Kankakee and ""Paree"", ""Washington Crossing the Delaware"", President Andrew Jackson, Niagara, Alcatraz, Buffalo Bill, Captain Spaulding (Groucho's character in Animal Crackers) exploring the Amazon, Lady Godiva (with her pajamas on), Grover Whalen, the Trylon, Treasure Island, Nijinsky, Social Security Number and a fleet of ships (on her hips). Alternate lyrics imply that Lydia's buttocks have tattoos of a globe (or a map of the world) and a caricature of Hitler (that she sits on). In 1950, Groucho famously 'stopped' trading at the New York"
"The Fall of Nineveh The Fall of Nineveh is a long poem in blank verse by Edwin Atherstone. It consists of thirty books preceded by a Prelude. The poem was written over many years and published 1828-1868. It tells of the battles and events during the war between the coalition of Medes and Babylonians against the Assyrians. The main heroes are Sardanapalus, King of Nineveh and of all the Assyrian empire; Arbaces, the prince of Medes; and a Babylonian priest, Belesis. Sardanapalus is portrayed as a womanizer, coward, and cruel tyrant. When defeated by Arbaces he burns his own palace"
"Luceafărul (poem) Luceafărul (originally spelled ""Luceafĕrul""; variously rendered as ""The Morning Star"", ""The Evening Star"", ""The Vesper"", ""The Daystar"", or ""Lucifer"") is a narrative poem by Romanian author Mihai Eminescu. It was first published in 1883, out of Vienna, by Romanian expatriates in Austria-Hungary. It is generally considered Eminescu's masterpiece, one of the greatest accomplishments in Romanian literature, and one of the last milestones in Europe's Romantic poetry. One in a family or ""constellation"" of poems, it took Eminescu ten years to conceive, its final shape being partly edited by the philosopher Titu Maiorescu. During this creative process, Eminescu distilled"
"Thyrsis (poem) ""Thyrsis"" (from the title of Theocritus's poem ""Θύρσις"") is a poem written by Matthew Arnold in December 1865 to commemorate his friend, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough, who had died in November 1861 aged only 42. The character, Thyrsis, was a shepherd in Virgil's Seventh Eclogue, who lost a singing match against Corydon. The implication that Clough was a loser is hardly fair, given that he is thought by many to have been one of the greatest Nineteenth Century poets (but see line 80: ""For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer’d thee""). Arnold's decision to imitate a Latin pastoral"
"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include ""Paul Revere's Ride"", ""The Song of Hiawatha"", and ""Evangeline"". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's ""Divine Comedy"" and was one of the five Fireside Poets from New England. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then still part of Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College and, after spending time in Europe, he became a professor at Bowdoin and later at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were ""Voices of the Night"" (1839)"