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4.13.4: Reading and Review Questions

  • Page ID
    63571
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    1. What allusions to Jewish history, life, and culture does Longfellow make in “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport”? How much understanding of Jewish life and culture on Longfellow’s part do these allusions suggest? How might his readers relate to these allusions? Why?
    2. Of all the immigrants to America, why does Longfellow focus on the Jews in “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport?” What might have America offered these Jews similar to/unlike immigrants from other nations? How, if at all, does Longfellow connect the Jews with the Old World (and the Dead) even as they rest in the New World? Why does he do so?
    3. How and why does Longfellow complicate the refrain in “My Lost Youth?”
    4. How has Longfellow regained his lost youth? What are the benefits of his having done so? The detriments?
    5. In “A Psalm of Life,” why does the Young Man address the Psalmist? Why, and how, does the Young Man “correct” the views or words of the Psalmist?

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