The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"The Courtship of Miles Standish," a narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, explores themes of love, duty, and cultural identity set in the early colonial New England. The story follows Captain Miles Standish, a weary soldier grappling with his loneliness after the death of his wife, and his friendship with John Alden, a young scholar. Standish, lacking the eloquence of a suitor, enlists Alden to propose marriage to Priscilla, a young woman mourning her own losses. However, Priscilla challenges the arrangement, insisting that Standish should declare his feelings directly. As tensions rise, the poem intertwines romantic entanglements with the realities of frontier life, including encounters with Native Americans and the harsh conditions of colonial existence. Ultimately, after a series of conflicts and misunderstandings, love prevails in a twist of fate that allows Alden and Priscilla to unite, while Standish shows a capacity for reconciliation. The poem reflects the complexities of human relationships against the backdrop of the Pilgrim experience, emphasizing themes of loyalty, bravery, and the struggle for connection amidst adversity.
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The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
First published: 1858
Type of work: Poetry
Type of plot: Romantic
Time of plot: 1621
Locale: Massachusetts Bay Colony
Principal characters
Miles Standish , a soldierJohn Alden , his friendPriscilla , a young woman loved by Standish and Alden
The Poem:
In the colony at Massachusetts Bay, Miles Standish is a gruff captain of pilgrim soldiers whose wife had died after the landing of the Mayflower the previous fall. He shares a cabin with John Alden, a young scholar. One night, Standish drops his copy of Caesar’s Commentaries and turns to Alden, who is writing a letter in which he praises Priscilla, one of the young women of the colony. Standish speaks of his lonely, weary life and of Priscilla, too, living alone; her parents had died during the winter.
Because he is no scholar but only a blunt soldier, Standish asks Alden to convey his proposal of marriage to Priscilla. Taken aback by the request, Alden stammers that it would be wiser for Standish to plead his own case. When the captain asks the favor in the name of friendship, the young man can no longer refuse.
In her cabin, Priscilla is singing the Hundredth Psalm and industriously spinning when Alden arrives at her door. Filled with woe at what he must do, he nevertheless steps resolutely inside. Seizing what seemed an opportune moment, he blurts out the captain’s proposal. Priscilla flatly refuses, for she believes that Standish himself should come if she is worth the wooing. She further confuses the young man by asking him why he does not speak for himself. Caught between his own love for Priscilla and his respect for Standish, Alden decides to go back to England when the Mayflower sails the next day.
Standish is enraged when he hears the outcome of Alden’s wooing, but the captain’s tirade is interrupted by news of approaching American Indians. In the colony’s council room, he finds an Indian bearing a snakeskin full of arrows—the challenge to battle. Pulling out the arrows, Standish fills the skin with bullets and powder and defiantly hands it back to the Indian. The warrior quickly disappears into the forest. The next morning before anyone else is awake, Standish, his eight men, and their Indian guide leave the village.
Alden does not sail away. Among the people on the beach he sees is Priscilla, who looks so dejected and appealing that he decides to stay and protect her. They walk back to the village together, and Alden describes Standish’s reaction to Priscilla’s question. He also confides that he had planned to leave the colony but is remaining to look after her.
Standish, marching northward along the coast, broods over his defeat in love but finally decides that he should confine himself to soldiering and forget wooing. When he returns to the village from his attack on the Indian camp, he brings with him the head of one of the Indians and hangs it on the roof of the fort. Priscilla is glad that she did not accept Standish’s proposal.
It is now autumn, and the village is at peace with the Indians. Captain Standish is out scouring the countryside. Alden builds his own house and often walks through the forest to see Priscilla. One afternoon, he sits holding a skein of thread as she winds it. As they sit talking, a messenger bursts in with the news that Standish has been killed by a poisoned arrow and that his men have been cut off in ambush.
At last, Alden feels free to make his own declaration. He and Priscilla are married in the village church before the entire congregation. The magistrate reads the service and the elder finishes the blessing when an unexpected guest appears at the door. It is Standish—recovered from his wound—and striding in like a ghost from the grave. Before everyone, the gruff soldier and the bridegroom make up their differences. Then, Standish tenderly wishes Alden and Priscilla joy, and the wedding procession sets off merrily through the forest to Priscilla’s new home.
Bibliography
Arvin, Newton. Longfellow: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963. Sees The Courtship of Miles Standish as an unpretentious domestic comedy, presented with simple truthfulness, appropriate Puritan coloration, and biblical imagery.
Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. A comprehensive and sympathetic biography, in which Calhoun seeks to rehabilitate Longfellow’s reputation and document his contributions to American culture and literature.
Ferguson, Robert A. “Longfellow’s Political Fears: Civic Authority and the Role of the Artist in Hiawatha and Miles Standish.” American Literature 50 (May, 1978): 187-215. Interprets John Alden as representing both the helpless, authority-fearing artist and the personally conflicted Longfellow himself. Interprets Miles Standish’s admiration for Julius Caesar as an unpleasant, intended characteristic.
Gale, Robert L. A Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. Several hundred alphabetically arranged entries about Longfellow’s individual poems, his other writings, his family members and associates, and other aspects of his life and work. Includes an introductory essay and a chronology.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: His Poetry and Prose. New York: Ungar, 1986. Praises The Courtship of Miles Standish for its faultless narrative flow; skillfully evoked atmosphere; unfaltering plot elements; and detailed, realistically presented, and developed characters. Asserts that the work neatly balances comedy and serious drama.
Williams, Alicia Crane. “John and Priscilla, We Hardly Knew Ye.” American History Illustrated 23 (December, 1988): 40-47. Explains that, although John Alden and Priscilla are elevated by Longfellow to legendary status, biographical information concerning the real pair is sketchy. John, a cooper who became a civil officer, and Priscilla, who inherited considerable money, married about 1623 and by 1650 had eleven children.
Williams, Cecil B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: Twayne, 1964. Provides a detailed plot summary of The Courtship of Miles Standish that includes carefully chosen quotations. Extols the work as part of America’s cultural heritage and refers to Longfellow’s journals for details about the work’s composition.
Youmans, Gilbert. “Longfellow’s Long Line.” In Formal Approaches to Poetry: Recent Development in Metrics, Phonology, and Phonetics, edited by B. Alan Dresher and Nila Friedberg. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Youmans analyzes minutely and helpfully Longfellow’s use of hexameter in his two major narrative poems written in hexameters, Evangeline and The Courtship of Miles Standish, showing how Longfellow adapts this difficult form to English verse.