Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

An epic is a long narrative poem that tells of the adventures of a great hero. It is a work on a large scale, taking place over a wide geographic area and over a long period of time. Classical epics include Homer’s The Odyssey and The Iliad, and Virgil’s Aeneid. Evangeline fulfills many of the characteristics of the traditional epic. It extends over many years, from the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755 to Evangeline’s return to Philadelphia in 1793, a period of 38 years. It also extends over a large area, covering much of colonial North America. Just like Odysseus in The Odyssey and Aeneas in The Iliad, the heroine, Evangeline, wanders for many years. Evangeline is searching for her lost husband, while Odysseus is trying to find his way back home after the Trojan War to Ithaca, where he will be reunited with his wife Penelope. There is therefore a similarity between the two heroes; they both seek a reunion with their spouses. Evangeline also has something in common with Penelope, since Penelope has to cultivate patience and strength of mind as she waits for her husband to return.

In traditional epic, the hero is a warrior renowned for his prowess in battle. This would not be appropriate for the female heroine in Evangeline, but Evangeline’s heroic stature lies in qualities such as her inner strength and resilience, and her nobility of character. She successfully battles against any temptation to give in to sorrow or despair. She is a heroine because she survives a catastrophe that might have overwhelmed a lesser character, and she always keeps her mind on her goal. She is also outstanding in her religious hope and her service to others.

The traditional epic is told in elevated style, employing dactylic hexameter and epic similes, a convention that Longfellow followed in Evangeline.

Since the line is long, dactylic hexameters often contain a caesura, that is, a pause or break within the line marked by a comma, semi-colon, period, or em dash. In Evangeline, a poem made up of 1,399 lines, about one-half of the lines have one caesura, while a little under one line in five has two caesuras. A few have four caesuras, and one even has five: “Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!” (Part 1, Canto IV, Line 120). About three in ten lines do not have any pause. (See Steele’s article in Modern Language Notes.)

Longfellow uses the caesura to create a variety in rhythm as well as to mark off grammatical clauses. Many of the caesuras fall after the first, stressed syllable of the dactyl, although this is not a hard-and-fast rule, since the position of the caesura varies.

An epic simile is an extended comparison of one thing with another unlike thing that brings out the similarity between them. Such a simile continues over several lines. Epic similes are found frequently in the Homeric epics, The Odyssey and The Iliad. Similes can often be recognized by the word “like” or “as,” as in the following passage when the effect on the villagers of the deportation announcement is compared to a sudden storm:

As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer,

Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones

Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters his windows,

Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the house-roofs,

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures;

So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker (Part 1, Canto IV, Lines 61-66).

Another example is the simile used to describe Evangeline’s wanderings and her state of mind:

Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished;

As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine,

Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended

Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen (Part 2, Canto I, Lines 24-27).

There are also a large number of less complex similes, drawn both from the natural world and other contexts. Of Evangeline, for example, “[b]lack were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside” (Part 1, Canto I, Line 47); entering the Bayou of Plaquemine, Evangeline and her companions were “lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters, / Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction” (Part 2, Canto II, Lines 27-28). One evening, “[t]he sun from the western horizon / Like a magician extended his golden wand o’er the landscape” (Part 2, Canto II, Lines 124-25). Later, as Evangeline walks in the night, “[l]oud and sudden and near the notes of a whippoorwill sounded / Like a flute in the woods” (Part 2, Canto III, Lines 67-68).

In what is known as the pathetic fallacy, emotions and feelings are ascribed to inanimate nature. The pathetic fallacy pervades the poem. Sometimes it conveys the notion that nature reacts in sympathy to human distress. For example, as Evangeline tries to absorb the shock of the deportation order, she hears “the disconsolate rain fall” (Part 1, Canto IV, Line 137). Nature provides encouragement to Evangeline and is even given direct speech, as when Evangeline is in Louisiana and is about to set off, the next day, in pursuit of Gabriel: “‘Patience!’ whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness: / And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, ‘To-morrow!’” (Part 2, Canto III, Lines 170-71). Early in the poem, during a beautiful fall season, “the restless heart of the ocean / Was for a moment consoled” (Part 1, Canto II, Lines 15-16), and “the great sun / Looked with eye of love through the golden vapors around him” (Lines 19-20). The pathetic fallacy thus weaves together the human and natural world, as if they are both subject to the same feelings and emotions.