19 pages • 38 minutes read
Robert W. ServiceThe Cremation of Sam McGee
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1907A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“Gunga Din” by Rudyard Kipling (1890)
A well-noted and very popular example by the Nobel Prize-winning Kipling, one of the manly poets (See: Background) writing about manly topics and designed for men to read. The ballad “Gunga Din” relates the story of the relationship between a British soldier stationed in occupied India and the humble but heroic water boy who serves his battle-tested platoon. Like with “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” Kipling’s ballad rewards dramatic recitation.
“Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1888)
“Casey at the Bat” entertains with a riveting and dramatic story, in this case the seriocomic account of an arrogant baseball player’s humbling at-bat. Like “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” “Casey at the Bat” found a wide and appreciative reception and became part of pop culture. Similar to Service, Thayer uses the story to teach conventional insights such as “pride goeth before the fall.”
“The Shooting of Dan McGrew” by Robert W. Service (1907)
Published in the same volume as “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” this ballad—about a mysterious stranger who shoots up a wilderness saloon during a card game, perhaps over a dark and fetching lady—helped establish Service’s reputation as a storyteller of the Yukon. “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” is similar in form and maintains the identical rhythm and rhyme structure and, like “Sam McGee,” allows the story to be weirdly paranormal and not quite tidy in its resolution.
Further Literary Resources
“The War Rhymes of Robert W. Service, Folk Poet” by Edward J. Cowan (1993)
A helpful look at the poet from the perspective that his work has been too long ignored by academics in a “conspiracy of silence,” this article examines Service’s all-but-forgotten poems based on his ambulance service experiences. The opening section provides a summary of Service’s position as poet after the tremendous success of “The Cremation of Sam McGee.
“‘A Man in a World of Men’: The Rough, the Tough, and the Tender in Robert W. Service’s Songs of a Sourdough” by Sharon Smulders (2005)
An important look at Service and the turn-of-the-century genre of manly poets writing about manly topics. The article uses Cap, the speaker in “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” as an example of Service’s heroic machismo, the true man with a tender heart.
“About Robert Service” on Poets.org
An accessible and reader-friendly overview of Service’s life that places Service's title of "the people's poet" into biographical context. Special attention is paid to his youth, upbringing, and literary influences, as well as his travel and service during World War I.
Listen to Poem
Not surprisingly, given its hammy drama and its lurid events, the poem has been recorded many times. But only one recording stands out. The deep rolling basso-profundo voice of country music icon Johnny Cash fits the mood and temperament of “Sam McGee.” His recording of the poem, released in 2005 after Cash’s death as part of a cache of private recordings, maintains the poem’s unsettling mystery and its eerie Gothicism. Although the YouTube version provides illustrations of frontier Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush to accompany Cash’s recording, listen to the recording with your eyes closed—let Johnny Cash tell the story.
