However, the two poems handle that shared theme quite differently. Longfellow depicts his youth climbing the mountain, clutching a banner tightly in his frozen fist. The poem's final image — a voice plummeting "like a falling star" from a tranquil sky — frames the death as a form of sanctification. Here, the striving itself is what matters, and the poem celebrates this pursuit. In contrast, Poe's knight finds no such solace. His lifetime of searching yields only a shadow leading him toward more shadows, over mountains that echo the sound of death. The quest is not glorified; it is laid bare.
These two poems exemplify the stark difference between Romantic uplift and Romantic irony. Reading them together highlights the division in the nineteenth century regarding whether the pursuit of the impossible is heroic or merely tragic.
The Reader's Atlas · Compare · Anthems & Quests
EldoradoExcelsior
Put Edgar Allan Poe's "Eldorado" (1849) next to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Excelsior" (1841), and at first glance, they seem to tell a similar story: a solitary traveler pursuing an unattainable goal, with the world offering no reward, leading to a journey that feels like a descent into death.
Poets
Edgar Allan Poe / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Years
—
Chapter
Anthems & Quests
§01 The thesis
Eldorado & Excelsior
A reader's case for putting these two side by side — what each carries, and what they argue when they sit on the same page.
§02 The dialectic axes
The two poems on four axes
Each axis isolates one specific vector — speaker, form, image, closing move — and reads the two poems against each other on that single dimension.
Axis
Poem A
Eldorado
Edgar Allan Poe
Poem B
Excelsior
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
01Speaker
Poem A · Eldorado
Poe employs a close third-person narrator that maintains a detached, almost clinical tone. The knight is portrayed from an external perspective — "gaily bedight," "bold" — yet the narrator refrains from expressing any support for him. By the time the shadow speaks, the narrator has distanced themselves so much that the poem's judgment is conveyed solely through implication.
Poem B · Excelsior
Longfellow's narrator comes across as more compassionate and engaged, taking a moment to observe the youth's sorrowful brow, his striking blue eye, and the tear that wells up in it. The narrator's clear emotional involvement influences the reader's perception of the death — it feels like a significant loss to mourn rather than a mistake to scrutinize.
02Form
Poem A · Eldorado
"Eldorado" consists of four six-line stanzas that follow a strict AABCCB rhyme scheme, featuring very short lines typically with just two or three stresses. This tight structure gives the poem a clipped, almost unforgiving quality, as if it is denying the knight more space than he merits.
Poem B · Excelsior
"Excelsior" spans nine five-line stanzas, with each stanza concluding with the same single-word refrain. The extended lines and additional stanzas allow the youth to gather warnings, encounters, and witnesses along the way. The poem creates a powerful death scene by gradually leading up to it over a much longer journey.
03Central image
Poem A · Eldorado
The central image in "Eldorado" is shadow—it shows up in every stanza, starting as a simple shade, then transforming into a weight that settles on the knight's heart, and finally taking the form of the pilgrim he encounters. By the last stanza, shadow has consumed the poem entirely. There's no light remaining to provide contrast.
Poem B · Excelsior
The central image in "Excelsior" is the banner — a tangible object that the youth holds onto without letting go, still in his "hand of ice" when the monks discover him. The banner makes the idea visible: the goal isn't just personal or internal but something you can grasp and showcase, something that endures beyond the life of the person who bore it.
04Closing move
Poem A · Eldorado
Poe concludes with the shadow's command: "Ride, boldly ride... If you seek for Eldorado!" The use of "if" introduces a final twist to the poem. The shadow doesn’t affirm that Eldorado is real; it simply indicates where to search if you’re determined to keep searching. The quest isn’t validated; instead, it’s shifted into darkness.
Poem B · Excelsior
Longfellow concludes with a voice that drops "like a falling star" from a "serene and far" sky. The word "Excelsior" carries on after the youth's passing, now echoing from heaven. The poem literally ascends at the end. The death becomes part of a greater whole, leaving the reader with a sense of uplift rather than uncertainty.
§03 Synthesis & departure
The shared ground and the divergence
Shared
Both poems are quest-ballads penned by American poets during the Romantic period's peak. They feature a solitary male traveler at their core, and both ultimately kill him—or leave him effectively dead—before the last stanza. The journeys depicted in each poem are clearly futile from a material standpoint: the knight never discovers Eldorado, and the youth never reaches the peak. Neither poem takes the time to clarify what Eldorado or "Excelsior" truly signify in concrete terms, and that ambiguity is intentional. The aim is to evoke a feeling, a sense of direction, an obsession—not a physical location.
Additionally, both poems employ a refrain to immerse the reader in the traveler's fixation. Poe concludes each stanza with "Eldorado," while Longfellow wraps up his stanzas with "Excelsior!" The impact is similar in both cases: the words begin to feel less like destinations and more like compulsions, uttered by a traveler unable to stop even as the signs indicate it will lead to his downfall. Each poem also introduces a shadowy or ghostly figure—Poe's literal "pilgrim shadow" and Longfellow's "spectral glaciers"—to signify the moment when the quest veers into the realm of death.
Where they diverge
The sharpest difference lies in the tone. Longfellow's poem comes across as sincere. The youth’s “bright blue eye,” the maiden’s offered breast, and the monks at prayer—all these details invite the reader to experience the loss. When the final voice descends “like a falling star,” the poem portrays death as beautiful, and the word “Excelsior” suggests something that endures and rises. The message is clear and comforting: keep climbing, even if it kills you.
In contrast, Poe completely rejects that warmth. His knight isn’t youthful and bright-eyed; he’s aged, his strength has “failed him at length.” The figure he encounters isn’t a maiden or a monk but a shadow—and the shadow’s advice, “Ride, boldly ride,” feels less like encouragement and more like a push toward oblivion. “The Valley of the Shadow” directly mirrors the valley of the shadow of death from Psalm 23. Longfellow’s refrain elevates; Poe’s drags downward. Longfellow’s poem concludes in the sky; Poe’s finishes underground, or as close to it as a six-line stanza can reach. One poem asserts that the dream is worth dying for, while the other questions whether the dream was ever real.
§04 A reader's order of operations
Which to read first
If you started with "Excelsior" and felt its pull — envisioning the frozen youth clutching his banner, with the word echoing from the sky — then move on to "Eldorado." In this poem, Poe presents a more skeptical take on the same narrative. While Longfellow offers a death that carries significance, Poe depicts a quest that might lead nowhere, guided by a figure made entirely of shadow. The two poems engage in a subtle debate, and reading Poe after Longfellow enhances the impact of both.
If you tackled "Eldorado" first and are looking for more, "Excelsior" will come across as surprisingly sincere in contrast — and that sincerity holds its own unique power.
§05 Reader's questions
On Eldorado vs Excelsior, frequently asked
Answer
Longfellow published "Excelsior" in 1841, eight years before Poe released "Eldorado" in 1849—the year Poe passed away. While there's no direct evidence that Poe wrote "Eldorado" as a reaction to Longfellow, it's clear that both were familiar with each other's work, and Poe had openly criticized Longfellow's writings in the past.
Answer
They are often featured together in American literature survey courses and in discussions about Romanticism, typically illustrating how the same theme—the fatal quest—can be approached with contrasting tones. This combination is also effective in lessons on the ballad form.
Answer
In "Eldorado," the lines that get quoted the most are the shadow's response: "Ride, boldly ride... If you seek for Eldorado!" In "Excelsior," the image that sticks with readers is the ending scene — the youth "still grasping in his hand of ice / That banner with the strange device, / Excelsior!"
Answer
It’s a Latin superlative that translates to "higher" or "ever upward." Longfellow presents it as an "unknown tongue" in the poem's context, enhancing the youth's sense of otherness—he's motivated by a word that nobody else comprehends. Interestingly, it's also the motto of New York State.
Answer
Eldorado is a legend from South American colonial mythology — a city or king said to be covered in gold, pursued by Spanish conquistadors during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the time of Poe, it had transformed into a broader symbol for any unattainable, dazzling goal, which is how he employs it.
Answer
Most readers and critics interpret it that way, indeed. The shadow's last condition — "If you seek for Eldorado" — leaves the existence of the place uncertain, and the directions it provides lead directly into death imagery found in the Psalms. The poem doesn’t celebrate the quest; instead, it challenges whether the quest was ever reasonable.
Answer
"Excelsior" was by far the bigger hit. It was set to music several times, memorized by schoolchildren throughout the United States and Britain, and became a kind of cultural catchphrase. While "Eldorado" was appreciated, it never reached the same level of popularity in the nineteenth century.
§06 More from this chapter
The poems people live by
8 comparisons in this chapter
William Ernest HenleyvsRobert Frost
InvictusagainstThe Road Not Taken
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowvsWilliam Ernest Henley
A Psalm of LifeagainstInvictus
Claude McKayvsEmma Lazarus
AmericaagainstThe New Colossus
Claude McKayvsPaul Laurence Dunbar
AmericaagainstWe Wear the Mask
John MasefieldvsW. B. Yeats
Sea FeveragainstThe Lake Isle of Innisfree
Rudyard KiplingvsPercy Bysshe Shelley