The Daily Scholar: Asturias Days

Asturias Days

American writer Clellan Coe, who has lived on the windswept northern coast of Spain for many years, sees her surroundings as both an insider and an outsider.

THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” is a jaunty, oft-quoted poem ingrained in the minds of most American schoolchildren. This is one of the main reasons, according to Jill Lepore, that Longfellow has been consistently ignored by literary scholars: “for a poet’s … reputation, to be read by children—and especially to be loved by children—is the sweet, sloppy kiss of death.” In our Spring 2011 issue, Lepore investigated the historical and literary merits of this 19th-century poem, published the same month South Carolina seceded from the United States. At the time, “Paul Revere’s Ride” was as much a clarion call for northerners to fight slavery as it was about the American Revolution.

Asturias Days

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