The Wreck of the Hesperus

"The Wreck of the Hesperus" is a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in "Ballads and Other Poems" in 1842. [Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN 0807070262. p. 138]

Overview

"The Wreck of the Hesperus" is a story that presents the tragic consequences of a sea captain's pride. On an ill-fated voyage in the winter, he had his daughter aboard ship for company. The disaster came when the captain ignored the advice of one of his experienced men, who feared that a hurricane was approaching. When the hurricane arrives, he ties his daughter to the mast to prevent her from being swept overboard; she calls out to her dying father as she hears the surf beating on the shore, then prays to Christ to calm the seas. The ship crashes onto the reef of Norman's Woe and sinks; a horrified fisherman finds her body, still tied to the mast, drifting in the surf the next morning. The poem ends with a prayer that we all be spared such a fate "on the reef of Norman's Woe".

Inspiration

Longfellow combined fact and fancy to create this, one of his best-known, most macabre, and most enduring poems. His inspiration was the great Blizzard of 1839, which ravaged the northeast coast of the United States for 12 hours starting January 6,1839, destroying over 1000 ships with a loss of over 40,000 lives. [Fitzgerald, Donal, "The Night of the Big Wind," "Ice, Gales and Moving Bogs". [http://homepage.eircom.net/~sosul/page93.html] Ballingeary Cumann Staire HistorySociety Journal.] He probably drew specifically on the destruction of the Wiscasset, Maine ship "Favorite" on the reef of Norman's Woe (located off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts); all hands were lost, one of whom was a woman, who reportedly floated to shore dead but still tied to the mast. [North Shore Community College, "Norman's Woe (Gloucester Harbor) Location, History, and Legends," "Poetry of Places in Essex County", [http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/ccarlsen/poetry/gloucester/normanswoehistory.htm] ] It is possible that this detail was taken from a different ship that foundered during the same storm, however.

In popular culture

There is a legend that Longfellow was late in January 1840 taking a steamboat from New York City to New England because he was discussing the merits of the new poem with a publisher.The steamboat he supposedly missed was the "Steamship Lexington" which caught fire and sank with the loss of 139 out of 143 passengers and crew on that voyage.

"Mad Magazine", in its early years, parodied much poetry by presenting the text with little or no change but with bizarre illustration by a member of its art staff. Wallace Wood took Longfellow's somber poem and illustrated it in a ridiculous manner, with a pint-sized captain, and a hideous, tall, buck-toothed daughter. The ship is found wrecked the morning after the storm, but the captain and his daughter survive and walk off along the shore (she is still tied to the broken-off twenty-foot-tall massive mainmast!), and the fisherman chases after them with her wig, shouting "Norman! Whoa!"

"The Wreck of the Hesperus" is also referenced in the comic song "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg and performed by Groucho Marx in the Marx Brothers movie "At the Circus" (1939). It became one of Groucho's signature tunes.

::Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?::Lydia The Tattooed Lady.::She has eyes that folks adore so,::And a torso, even more so.::Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia,::Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo.::On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.::Beside it The Wreck of the Hesperus too.::And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.::You can learn a lot from Lydia!" The title phrase has also been used as a colloquial term in the UK to mean a "disheveled appearance," spoken as "You look like the wreck of the Hespress!". Its everyday use was greater in the 1950s to 1970s, and it is uncommon to hear it in the 21st century. Former Beatle George Harrison referenced this colloquial usage in writing his song "Wreck of the Hesperus," included on his 1987 album "Cloud Nine".

In "The Simpsons" sixth season episode "Homer the Great," Homer Simpson is repeatedly paddled by the Stonecutters as an initiation prank. Each of the paddlings is given a name, one of them being "The Wreck of the Hesperus." [Richmond, Ray and Coffman, Antonia. "The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family." New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1997. ISBN 0006388981]

In "Mighty Mouse" Season 1, Episode 1, "The Wreck of the Hesperus" (First Aired: February 11, 1944), the poems characters are portrayed as mice, and the outcome is more sanguine when Mighty Mouse comes to the rescue the crew before drowning.

The rock band "Procol Harum" included their song "The Wreck of the Hesperus" on their album "A Salty Dog", released in 1969. It is the story of a shipwreck in progress, and so harks back to the original poem. On the American version of the LP, it was the penultimate track on the B side. On the CD release, it is track #7. [Wikipedia article, " [A Salty Dog}"]

References