Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Romanticism.
Characterized by the power of nature, beauty, and imagination, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poems are essentially Romantic. "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" contains a multitude of qualities that are considered to be aspects of romantic poetry. Romanticism is defined as the name given to those schools of thought that value feeling and intuition over reason. A well-known romantic writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, supports the notion of emotion over mind by saying, "Character is higher than intellect a great soul will be strong to live, as well to think." Living near the ocean on the East Coast for much of his life, Longfellow was able to experience the splendor of nature and incorporate it into his works. He devoted himself to teaching and poetry, often having a religious zeal and love for foreign languages and cultures that were often apparent within his verse. "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" was written to evoke feelings over reason while providing the reader with a visual journey in a natural setting.
A method that romantic writers use to reveal certainties about the world is to avoid writing about industrial cities where the future and new inventions take place. Exotic settings, or simply a place where only nature is present, is often used to represent the beauty and underlying truths of the world. In "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls," Longfellow places the traveler by the sea. Longfellow was known for often .
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writing about the ocean, partly because he had for so long resided by the crashing waves and chilling water of the Atlantic. The traveler is in solitude, which evokes a sense of peace and understanding between the reader and the themes Longfellow is attempting to represent. Using "unspoiled" nature, the reader is allowed to use their creative imagination to interpret the poem in areas where the author left "gaps" or uncertainties.