Philip Freneau (1752-1832): Naturalist and Political Pamphleteer

 Phillip Freneau was an accomplished journalist and political pamphleteer, among other things. Born in 1752, Freneau’s family was well established, and art often entered his home. He was friends and roommates with James Madison, and close friends with Hugh Henry Brackenridge, with whom he wrote “On the Rising Glory of America” with. Sometimes known as “The Poet of the American Revolution”, Freneau was known for intense, vivid lyrics to go along with his prose on the important matters to the colonies and of the 18th century. Unfortunately, Freneau was unable to support himself as a writer, and died, lost in a blizzard in 1832. We will discuss the poem The Wild Honey Suckle and its resonance, his poem The Indian Burial Ground and its reflection on our earlier readings, and his poem On Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and how it supplied to the revolutionary cause.

 Of the poems presented to us from Phillip Freneau, The Wild Honey Suckle is what resonated the most. In the first stanza, Freneau introduces us to a wild flower, where we are painted a scene that this flower is somewhere untouched by human or animal interference. In the second stanza, we are presented with the image of the wild honey suckle standing strong in the midst of summer. With the effective use of imagery, Freneau paints a vivid picture of the wild honeysuckle, with the shade from the trees guarding the flower overexposed in sunlight, and rich waters provided nearby. Freneau does this so that we can observe and internalize the strength that the flower grows within its environment. We often feel warmth and energy in summer, and not just on our skin, but in our bodies too. This stanza of summer effectively makes us feel that way, an ode to Freneau’s exceptional prose. When we get to the fourth and final stanza, we read Freneau’s reflection on the life of the wild honeysuckle. This being an existential inquiry to the importance of the wild flower’s life, we get a glimpse on how ordained Freneau was to the religion of nature, and how it reflected in his political sidings. The Wild Honey Suckle is an incredibly personal piece, one that can be related to ever so strongly today. This Enlightenment side of Freneau is perhaps what has brought him through the history books, for the ideals of the American Revolution are heavily based on such. The reason this resonates so strongly is because the contemplation of existence will never wilt away. Our physical bodies will wilt away, like the flower’s; but our conscious desire for meaning will not, and the memory of this flower never will either. We owe this introspective contrast to Freneau for the way he presented the flower’s image in his poem The Wild Honey Suckle; for when art resonates with us, we tend not to forget it, just like the memory of this wild honeysuckle.

 The Indian Burial Ground places us in the site of where Indian ancestors are buried. Freneau goes on to describe the way they are buried, which is in a seated position, rather than lying flat. Freneau does this to contrast the traditions of the Natives, and that of the colonizers, so that we identify a difference between them. He further adds on to this contrast by observing what else is buried with the Indians; their bowls, venison, bow and arrow, and other items of importance to their culture. Freneau alludes to that even after death, the Indians are still busy with their hunting and crafts, because it is so important in their culture that it carries on with them in the next life. This is vastly different to the different sects of European religious tradition, in which the body will lie flat, because death is just the beginning of eternal rest and serenity. Freneau also implores an incredible literative response to this commanding strife between Native and European culture, and that is when he introduces the deer and the hunter. The deer and the hunter are implied as a shade of themselves, as if the hunter is really hunting his own shadow. By understanding this, we see Freneau’s masterful connection to the spirit of the Native Americans and the spirit of the Europeans. They are really one in the same, and the irony of the hunter in a hunt for his own shadow successfully contrasts these two spirits; along with the spirits that reside within this Indian burial ground.  This way of Enlightenment thinking is quite before his time, for only upon reflection do Americans now see the tremendous fault in the colonization of this continent.

 Freneau was often involved in political pamphleteering, and his support of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason was held firmly within the lines of his poem On Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man. The subject is the French Revolution, and Freneau goes on to question the base of the French Monarchy’s power. He wonders how such madmen were able to poison government and become heavily involved in slavery and tyranny. He wonders why it is those who were born into royalty have such power, while those not born into power are essentially slaves. Then Freneau goes on to mention Paine, and praises him for taking up his page to write on rising up mankind, while at the same time bringing down kingdoms. He then comments on the oddity of high ranked men being able to divert others' value to that of “beasts”. Freneau looks back on history, and is enraged by this sentiment of the rich enslaving the poor. Last, Freneau calls to America with one profound motion; without a king, and without slaves, America will remain a generous state with generous inhabitants, for the virtue of a great government comes from the protection of human rights.

 Throughout The Wild Honey Suckle, The Indian Burial Ground, and On Paine’s Rights of Man, there is a common theme despite the difference in content. The honeysuckle represents freedom, as it returns just as it became, free from distress and discomfort. The Indian burial ground is a place for retrospection, pondering whether in the end, if we are all the same. Thomas Paine’s emphatic support of the French Revolution greatly mirrored the American’s freedom from the restraints of Great Britain, as further emphasized by Freneau. The common theme was this; Phillip Freneau was an advocate for freedom in nature, spirit, and in politics, which seated his place with the great enlightenment thinkers of his era; The American Revolution.