"The Tide
Rises, The Tide Falls" by Henry Longfellow is a brief yet powerful poem which
emphasizes naturalism. Longfellow simply
delivers the message of life using several literary devices such as repetition
and symbolism to support the complex meaning of "tide rises, the tide
falls."
After giving it
a couple reads, readers are able to catch on to the surface meaning of the line "tide rise, the tide falls"
symbolizing the interminable time that passes. Longfellow uses repetition of
this line a total of four times. He places it in the beginning at first and as
the last line for each stanza respectively. By doing so, one values the
significance of the repetitious lines. The
repeated emphasis in each stanza provides an analysis of the nature moving on
despite the tide rising and falling. By this, one can see that no human being
can interrupt a nature's continuity. The way Longfellow describes the tides
rising and falling relates to the poem as a whole; a symbol of life. For
example, the tide rising describes a new life while the tide falling represents
the end or death of life and how the pattern continues.
Going deeper, one
can see that Longfellow incorporates a brand new meaning to the same line. When
reading these lines, one can see Longfellow’s views through the period of
Romanticism. For instance, the nature of rising and falling follow the idea of
intuition over reasoning and the tides liken with the nature and freedom. While
the first two repetitive lines expressed the ongoing life-cycle of nature and
human, the same line expresses the after-death in a different stanza. Once the
tide rises again and falls, it reaches out and fades the footprints. In other
words, a human's mark will eventually be forgotten after their death, and the
tide will continue to rise and fall, connecting back to the surface meaning
Although
Longfellow is a writer of Romanticism, Naturalism is also evidently shown when humans
cannot interrupt the sequence of nature; they cannot try to overcome or oppose
it either, which signifies limited freedom of the people. When the man hastened
toward the town, Longfellow’s diction shows that the man is hesitantly trying
to overcome the time. No matter how much he tries, he eventually cannot come
back (referring to death).
As a reader, one
can see the effectiveness of the line "the tide rises, the tide
falls" has on the poem. Unlike the light, rain, or any other nature
effects, a tide is something that will recur as long as the earth exists. It
marks the beginning and end; it symbolizes time. Longfellow does a phenomenal
representation of an on-going cycle, death, and time with a line of poetry.
For the revision, I re-read the comments from peers on the first draft. Julia suggested that I analyze more specifically by adding the structure of the poem. I talked about how the repetition of the line marking the beginning and ending of each stanza provided emphasis. Greg insisted on adding how naturalism plays a role. While reviewing the literary time periods, I noticed that it tied well into Romanticism as well because Longfellow is a writer of that period. Lastly, John suggested that I put more literary element connections, so in addition to symbolism and repetition, I briefly added the use of diction.
