Fata Morgana

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Fata Morgana

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Fata Morgana is a poem that encapsulates the Romantic obsession with the unattainable—the fleeting nature of beauty, the artist’s ceaseless quest for inspiration, and the melancholy of perpetual longing. At just sixteen lines, the poem is deceptively simple, yet it resonates with profound philosophical and aesthetic implications. To fully appreciate its depth, we must situate it within its historical and literary context, examine its thematic preoccupations, and explore its stylistic and emotional nuances. This analysis will expand upon these elements while drawing comparisons to other Romantic works, considering Longfellow’s personal life, and engaging with philosophical concepts of the sublime.

I. Historical and Literary Context: Longfellow and the American Romantic Tradition

Longfellow was a central figure in the American Romantic movement, which flourished in the mid-19th century alongside Transcendentalism. Unlike the darker, more introspective strain of Romanticism seen in Poe or Melville, Longfellow’s verse often embraced a gentler, more meditative tone, influenced by European traditions (particularly German and English Romanticism). His work frequently engaged with themes of memory, loss, and artistic idealism, all of which are evident in Fata Morgana.

A. The Influence of European Romanticism

The poem’s title, Fata Morgana, directly references a mirage phenomenon linked to Arthurian legend (Morgan le Fay, the enchantress). This allusion places the poem within a tradition of Romantic works fascinated by illusions and the supernatural—Coleridge’s Kubla Khan (with its "vision in a dream") and Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn (with its frozen, unattainable beauty) are clear kindred spirits. Like these poems, Fata Morgana explores the tension between the ideal and the real, suggesting that the most beautiful visions are those that remain just beyond reach.

B. The American Landscape and the Myth of the Frontier

Longfellow’s imagery—particularly the "weary traveller" in the desert or prairie—evokes the 19th-century American fascination with expansion and exploration. The mirage serves as a metaphor not just for artistic pursuit but also for the broader American myth of the frontier: an ever-receding horizon of promise. This aligns with the Transcendentalist belief in an idealized, spiritualized nature, where reality is imbued with symbolic meaning.

II. Thematic Analysis: The Illusory Nature of Art and Desire

A. The Artist’s Eternal Pursuit

The poem opens with an invocation to the "sweet illusions of Song," immediately framing artistic inspiration as something ephemeral and deceptive. The speaker is "tempted" by these visions, suggesting both desire and frustration. The lines—

"I approach, and ye vanish away, / I grasp you, and ye are gone"

—capture the essence of creative struggle: the moment an idea forms, it slips away. This is reminiscent of Shelley’s To a Skylark, where the bird’s song symbolizes pure, unattainable poetic inspiration.

B. The Mirage as Metaphor

The central metaphor of the mirage is developed in the second stanza, where the traveler sees:

"Blue lakes, overhung with trees, / That a pleasant shadow cast"

only for them to dissolve upon approach. This imagery echoes ancient literary motifs, such as the "Oasis of Illusion" in Arabic poetry or the "Flying Dutchman" legend in maritime folklore—stories where hope is sustained by its own impossibility.

C. The Land of Dreams vs. the Real World

The final stanza introduces the "shining city of song," a symbol of artistic perfection. Yet, like the Celestial City in Pilgrim’s Progress or Yeats’ Byzantium, it remains ungraspable. The speaker’s inability to "enter the gate" suggests that true artistic transcendence may be impossible—or that its beauty lies in the pursuit itself.

III. Comparative Readings: Longfellow in Dialogue with Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson

A. Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn: Frozen Ideals

Both poems explore the tension between stasis and motion, between the eternal and the transient. Keats’ urn captures a moment forever suspended in art ("Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!"), while Longfellow’s mirage is always receding. Yet both suggest that art’s greatest power lies in its elusiveness.

B. Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty: The Unseen Power

Shelley’s poem personifies inspiration as a "shadow of some unseen Power" that flickers in and out of human perception. Like Longfellow’s "melody [that] soundeth on," Shelley’s beauty is felt but never fully grasped. Both poets treat artistic inspiration as a divine visitation, fleeting and mysterious.

C. Tennyson’s Ulysses: The Relentless Seeker

Tennyson’s aging hero declares, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"—a sentiment echoed in Longfellow’s wandering speaker. Both poems valorize the journey over the destination, suggesting that meaning is found in perpetual striving.

IV. Philosophical Underpinnings: Kant’s Sublime and Schopenhauer’s Will

A. The Kantian Sublime

Immanuel Kant distinguished between the "beautiful" (harmonious, pleasurable) and the "sublime" (awe-inspiring, overwhelming). Longfellow’s mirage evokes the mathematical sublime—vast, infinite, ungraspable—suggesting that true art exists at the edge of comprehension.

B. Schopenhauer’s Concept of Eternal Desire

Arthur Schopenhauer argued that human suffering stems from the endless cycle of desire and dissatisfaction. The poem’s speaker, like Schopenhauer’s "will-driven" individual, is condemned to chase an illusion, yet this very chase defines his existence.

V. Personal Biographical Connections: Longfellow’s Grief and Artistic Solace

Longfellow wrote Fata Morgana during a period of personal tragedy (his wife’s death in a fire in 1861). The poem’s themes of loss and elusive comfort may reflect his own struggle to reconcile art with suffering. Like the traveler chasing a mirage, Longfellow may have sought in poetry a consolation that always remained just out of reach.

VI. Conclusion: The Beauty of the Unattainable

Fata Morgana is more than a poem about artistic frustration—it is a meditation on the human condition. Whether in art, love, or ambition, we are all travelers chasing mirages. Yet Longfellow suggests that the pursuit itself is sacred, that the "melody soundeth on" not despite our failure to grasp it, but because of it.

In an age of instant gratification, Fata Morgana remains a poignant reminder that some truths are only beautiful because they cannot be caught—and that the act of seeking is itself a form of grace.