Hiawatha (1913 film) Hiawatha (1913 film) Hiawatha is a 1913 American silent drama film directed by Edgar Lewis and based upon Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855). The film stars Jesse Cornplanter of the Seneca people and Soon-goot, a 17-year-old unknown actress. The movie is the first feature film to use a cast of American Indians. The story begins along the Lake Superior Michigan shoreline with the appearance of a mighty spirit that tells the Indians a peacekeeper will bring wisdom and unite the warring tribes. Hiawatha is born to Wenonah and after her death her mother Nokomis raises
The Song of Roland editors of the Song of Roland, informed in part by patriotic desires to produce a distinctly French epic, could thus overstate the textual cohesiveness of the Roland tradition. This point is expressed by Andrew Taylor, who notes, "[T]he Roland song was, if not invented, at the very least constructed. By supplying it with an appropriate epic title, isolating it from its original codicological context, and providing a general history of minstrel performance in which its pure origin could be located, the early editors presented a 4,002 line poem as sung French epic". Charlemagne's army is fighting the Muslims in Spain.