Hello readers, and welcome back to yet another issue of the Short Short review. Just as a reminder, in this column I attempt to review a short film, story or poem (wow change!) in a really short number of words. This week I’ll be reviewing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (BEST NAME EVER) “Haunted Houses” in well, a short amount of words because I’m too lazy to set a limit this time and because it is Halloween-ish.
To start, I want to give a bit of background on the author. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a famous American poet born in 1807. He is known for writing lyric poetry and is apparently quite famous. Well enough about him. POETRY TIME!
The poem is well, not exactly accessible. I have come to discern that the title of the poem is derived from the first stanza “All houses wherein men have lived and died/Are haunted houses. Through the open doors/The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,/With feet that make no sound upon the floors.” However, I’ve come to the conclusion that the poem is trying to tell the reader that every house has phantoms of those that lived in it before, and one should not forget about them.
So a little about the form of the poem, as I pretty much summarized the meaning of it. The poem is made up of four-line ABAB stanzas, where the first line rhymes with the third and the second rhymes with the fourth. This makes the poem have a haunting tone when read, which suits the topic quite well.
Overall, I’m going to give this poem 2.5 pumpkins out of 5. It could be that I don’t really understand it or I’m still grumpy from midterms and my brain isn’t working. I promise next week we’ll have a fantastically new and shiny review!
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