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Peter Parker Reads Poetry

 Background of Peter Reads Poetry
  Doctor Otto Octavius advises a love sick Peter Parker that the best way to win a woman's heart is to "feed her poetry" in Spider-Man 2 (2004).

Peter memorizes and begins reciting to Mary Jane Watson an excerp from the epic poem The Song of the Hiawatha, by nineteenth century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem, which describes several legends of the Chippewa Indians, was published in 1855.

Parker begins reciting a couple lines from the poem, which read:
Brightest green were all her garments,
And her hair was like the sunshine.

Day by day he gazed upon her,
Day by day he sighed with passion...
A longer excerp of Longfellow's poem, The Song of the Hiawatha, is posted below.

Several lines in the passage parallel Peter Parker's own situation and his thoughts and feelings about Mary Jane. These lines are bolded and highlighted in blue.

  Peter and Mary Jane
Peter Parker (left) and Mary Jane Watson (right)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

 
The Song of the Hiawatha (1855)
Excerp of Part I, Chapter 2: The Four Winds

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listless, careless Shawondasee!
In his life he had one shadow,
In his heart one sorrow had he.
Once, as he was gazing northward,
Far away upon a prairie
He beheld a maiden standing,
Saw a tall and slender maiden
All alone upon a prairie;
Brightest green were all her garments,
And her hair was like the sunshine.

Day by day he gazed upon her,
Day by day he sighed with passion,
Day by day his heart within him
Grew more hot with love and longing
For the maid with yellow tresses.
But he was too fat and lazy
To bestir himself and woo her.
Yes, too indolent and easy
To pursue her and persuade her;
So he only gazed upon her,
Only sat and sighed with passion
For the maiden of the prairie.


Till one morning, looking northward,
He beheld her yellow tresses
Changed and covered o'er with whiteness,
Covered as with whitest snow-flakes.
"Ah! my brother from the North-land,
From the kingdom of Wabasso,
From the land of the White Rabbit!
You have stolen the maiden from me,
You have laid your hand upon her,
You have wooed and won my maiden,

With your stories of the North-land!"

 
 Appears in the Following Films
  Spider-Man 2 (2004)

     


     
       

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