Paul Revere's Ride Analysis

Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear, Shmoop is here. Check out our...

Regular Rhyme, Varied MeterLongfellow is known for using regular rhyme and meter. For the most part, that's the case in this poem, but things do get a little complicated in a few places. Let's sta...

For some reason, we picture the speaker of this poem as a fun, twinkly-eyed old grandfather. (Maybe it's the "listen, my children" stuff at the beginning.) He probably doesn't get around so well a...

So if you'll bear with us, we imagine this whole poem taking place on the floor during kindergarten story time. You know the scene because you've been there. A ratty old rug on a hard linoleum fl...

The sounds of the poem go through different stages, as Longfellow takes you through Revere's busy night. At the beginning – up until about line 72, when Paul takes off on his horse – everythin...

EpicUsually epic poems are supposed to be longer, but this poem matches the definition of an epic in other ways. It tells a story of heroic deeds in the past, so it makes sense to think of it as a...

Longfellow didn't get too fancy with the title of this poem. He was writing a poem about a famous ride taken by a man called Paul Revere, so he called it (drum roll, please) "Paul Revere's Ride."...

Catchy Lines, Exciting Plots and Big Beautiful ImagesWe like Longfellow, but we admit that not everyone does. Some people find him a little corny, and poetry snobs think he's way too easy. But we...

(2) Sea LevelAt the end of the day, this is just a good, exciting story. There are a few tricky words in your path, and you might need to brush up on your history a little, but we're confident it...

Before he could finish his ride, Revere got busted by the British. They took his horse, and he had to walk back to Lexington (source).Longfellow fudged the lantern story a bit. Actually it was Re...

GJust good clean family fun here. We could make a joke about the poem taking place in "Middlesex," but fortunately Shmoop is way too grown up for that.