Question

1. Why has Longfellow used the Alpine village as the setting of the poem “Excelsior

Answer 1

Explanation:

Longfellow's first draft of "Excelsior", now in the Harvard University Library, notes that he finished the poem at three o'clock in the morning on September 28, 1841.The poem came to him as he was trying to sleep. "That voice kept ringing in my ears", as he wrote to his friend Samuel Gray Ward, which caused him to get up and write the poem immediately

"Excelsior" was printed in Supplement to the Courant, Connecticut Courant, vol. VII no. 2, January 22, 1842 It was also included in Longfellow's collection Ballads and Other Poems in 1842

The title of Excelsior was reportedly inspired by the state seal of New York, which bears the Latin motto Excelsior. Longfellow had seen it earlier on a scrap of newspaper.Longfellow explained the repeated title as from the Latin, Scopus meus excelsior est ("my goal is higher"). Biographer Charles Calhoun suggested the Alpine setting was an autobiographical reference to the poet's then-unsuccessful wooing of Frances Appleton, daughter of industrialist Nathan Appleton.