Previous Next

“Paul Revere’s Ride” has a reverent and earnest tone that is often associated with narratives that recount the deeds of heroes. The speaker’s reverent sincerity is clear from the very beginning, when they insist on the historical significance of the story they’re about to tell (lines 1–5):

     Listen, my children, and you shall hear
     Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
     On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
     Hardly a man is now alive
     Who remembers that famous day and year.

The speaker enjoins their audience to listen carefully to a story about a man who has nearly been lost to history. Their evident belief in the significance of “the midnight ride of Paul Revere” calls us readers to attention and primes us to revere Revere. In addition to the speaker’s explicit signaling of Revere’s importance, Longfellow also communicates earnest reverence through the poem’s formal and linguistic elegance. Regarding form, Longfellow has allowed for a great deal of variation in the poem’s meter and rhyme. This variation allows for a sophisticated ebb and flow of language, which Longfellow refines further through his use of caesura and enjambment. As for language, Longfellow makes limited but elegant use of different types of figurative language. He also often uses alliteration to great effect, subtly underscoring the importance of moments that otherwise seem insignificant. As an example, consider the fourth stanza (lines 24–30):

     Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
     Wanders and watches with eager ears,
     Till in the silence around him he hears
     The muster of men at the barrack door,
     The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
     And the measured tread of the grenadiers
     Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Even in this apparently insignificant moment, the eloquent language continues to communicate a tone of earnest reverence.

Previous section Symbols Next section Structure

Take a Study Break