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Craig White's Literature Courses North Star |
 Polaris or the "North Star" is at the end of the handle of the Ursa Minor / Little Dipper constellation next to Ursa Major / the Big Dipper (Slave song: "Follow the drinking gourd.") |
For earth's northern hemisphere, the "pole star"—a visible star aligned with the planet's axle of rotation—is "Polaris" or "the North Star."
"Polaris" is Latin for "of / near the pole."
Polaris or the North Star was used as a navigational guide at least since late antiquity or before the Middle Ages.
Before the American Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th Amendment, the North Star served as a guide to slaves in the southern USA seeking to escape to northern states or Canada.
Several texts in American Renaissance and American Romanticism refer to the North Star:
Video of stars apparently streaming while North Star / Polaris apparently stands still:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp6UkqIwVfk
How may the North Star fit the definition of a symbol?
symbol as image + meaning
image = reality (to senses)
meaning = interpretation of image, location in narrative or other context / network of other symbols that share meaning
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