SOURCE: “Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie; by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” in American Literary Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 3, March, 1848, pp. 172-83. Reprinted in Longfellow among His Contemporaries: A Harvest of Estimates, Insights, and Anecdotes from the Victorian Literary World and an Index, by Kenneth Walter Cameron, Transcendental Books, 1978, pp. 20-23.

In the following review, the author summarizes the plot of Evangeline and provides analysis of Longfellow's use of hexameter.

A poem from Longfellow is sure to be welcomed, and what is better, is sure to be read; unless indeed it is a drama. Evangeline is a simple story, prettily told in a novel style of verse. The incidents and the personages—we can hardly call them characters—are few. The story opens about 1655, in Nova Scotia, or Acadie. The French inhabitants of that colony were a quiet, agricultural race. They lived in great harmony together, forming a community in which...