Philip Freneau

1.) Freneau is noted as a “transitional figure” -- between the Enlightenment (Neoclassicism) and the Romantic age.

Enlightenment / Neoclassic = DEISM

Romantic = PANTHEISM

2.) Classicism, Primitivism, and Romantic Sympathy are apparent in Freneau’s poems.

Classical References -- Greek and Roman mythology, the Muses, the use of heroic couplets

Primitivism -- the Indians and the “Noble Savage”

Romantic -- interest in Indians, Nature, Slavery

3.) Imagination and Nature are also important to Freneau.

4.) His “master thought” = the idea of mutability, of the brevity of life and the certainty of death.

5.) Freneau used Specific and Concrete details in his poetry. Contrast them to the Generalized Abstractions in the poetry of his predecessors, such as Wheatley.

6.) Freneau, a sometime sea captain, portrays the overwhelming tempestuous forces of nature in “The Hurricane.”  Discuss the conclusion in the final couplet.  Explain how the contrast of overwhelming powers of nature with the feeble efforts of man anticipates later romantic doctrines.

7.) Compare Freneau’s reaction to slavery, evident in “To Sir Toby,” to that of Wheatley and to that of Crevecoeur.

8.) His use of the Heroic Couplets in “To Sir Toby” is a rhetorical device consistent with the traditions of invective and satire in the 18th century.  What qualities of the Heroic Couplet make it particularly useful in the writing of satire?

9.) “The Wild Honeysuckle” expresses Freneau's concern with decline, decay, and death.

10.) “The Indian Burying Ground” is perhaps the most notable early expression of the American literary idealization of the Indian.

18th century -- tetrameter quatrains

Romanticism -- subject matter -- presentation of nature, primitivism, and the idea of reason bowing “to shadows and delusions”

11.) “On a Honey Bee” is a mock ode on the perils and transience of life. Compare to Taylor’s “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly.”

Source: Prentice Hall Anthology of American Literature (IM)