The Jewish Cemetery at Newport

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1854

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Rhyme, Diction, and Alliteration

Musicality is one of the key features of Longfellow’s poetic oeuvre, and is clearly heard in “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport.” Written as regular quatrains (four-line stanzas) with an ABAB rhyme scheme, the poem mostly follows iambic pentameter. Each line of the poem contains five feet (pentameter) with each foot (iambs) complying with the unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable pattern. Though the end-rhymes are relatively straightforward—“town / down,” “sleep” / “keep”—the poet avoids a lullaby-like effect with the occasional unusual rhyme (“Decalogue” / “Synagogue”) and its formal diction. The diction is reminiscent of Victorian English poetry, imparting a sense of solemnity to the proceedings, which befits an elegy.

The musical quality of the poem is enhanced by the use of alliteration—another poetic device popular in Victorian poetry. Longfellow’s use of alliteration (repeated word sounds) is distinctive in that the repeated sounds are often accompanied by a strong visual image, such as in phrases like “sepulchral stones” (Line 9), “desert desolate” (Line 31), and “mirk and mire” (Line 34). This imbues the phrases with particular mnemonic potential.

Metaphors, Similes, and Symbols

Longfellow liberally employs metaphor, simile, and symbolism throughout his poetry. One of the most powerful series of metaphors of the poem arises near the end of the poem:

“For in the background figures vague and vast

Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,

And all the great traditions of the Past

They saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus forever with reverted look

The mystic volume of the world they read,

Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,

Till life became a Legend of the Dead” (Lines 49-56).

In the beginning of this passage, the future turns a mirror toward the past, with the shadowy figures of patriarchs and prophets “reflected in the coming time” (Line 52). The metaphor resolves the distinction between life and death, past and future: There is still hope for the exiled people because they see their coming glory reflected in the mirror. On the other hand, the metaphor of the mirror also induces a sense of claustrophobia and repetition. The exiled communities seem to be enclosed in a pattern.

With the next passage, the metaphor of the mirror morphs into that of a book. The world is now a “mystic volume” (Line 54) and life is an experience of reading or learning this tome. Taking another metaphor, the poet expands on the way he supposes the Jewish communities live or “read” their life. This reading is backward, like that of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the world’s mystic volume is for the exiles a Hebrew book, a “Legend of the Dead” (Line 56). There are two interpretations of this system of metaphors as well: that exile and suffering lead to knowledge, as symbolized by a book, and that the exiled communities are fated to repeat the past.

The last stanza uses the metaphor of birth to build upon the suggestion that the past does not recur. Here, the earth is compared to a woman in labor: “The groaning earth in travail and in pain / Brings forth its races (Lines 58-59). However, just as species can give birth but cannot revive the dead, the earth cannot resuscitate “dead nations” (Line 60). The suggestion here is that the exiles cannot build the future in the image of the past. Alternatively, as discussed earlier in this guide, being located amongst his particular historical milieu, Longfellow cannot yet imagine an Israelite nation.

Longfellow also uses similes. In the third stanza, the speaker states the gravestones of the cemetery “seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down/ And broken by Moses at the mountain's base” (Lines 11-12). The simile depends on the reader’s knowledge of the Christian Bible, which was a given in Longfellow’s time.

Further, the poem uses rich symbolism to convey themes of the boundary between life and death, and the suffering of Jewish communities. Symbols such as graves, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs also serve as larger metaphors for the poem’s themes.

Antithesis and Contrast

Despite its accessible rhyme and regular pattern, “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” has a certain jagged quality that keeps the reader on their toes. The poem derives much of this power from its use of antithesis and contrast. In the first reading of the poem, it is apparent that the speaker does not aim to offer panaceas for human suffering in general, and particularly for the injustice against Jewish communities. They honor the dead, but know death is irreversible. They unequivocally establish that Christian hate has had devastating results for Jewish communities, but cannot conceive of a separate homeland for the Jews. They also cannot mitigate the reality of anti-Semitism.

Too realistic to reconcile these opposites, the poet retains them in the poem through a series of antithetical images and statements. The dead are silent against the loud movement of the ocean. They cannot return to life, but are tended and kept green by the hands of nature and god. Persecuted communities are humiliated but proud; they are described as “unshaken as the continent” (Line 48), but the continent cannot make dead nations rise. The tonal variations and contrasting imagery do not convey confusion, but a distinctly modern honesty. The poet cannot reconcile the contraries of life as he knows it and this shines in “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport.”