Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
impoverished and enslaved; indeed, it curses the ship that brought slaves to
that island. After leaving the West Indies in 1778, Freneau took to the seas
himself, serving as a seaman on a blockade runner. While on an American
ship, he was captured and taken prisoner by the British. His poem “The
British Prison Ship” (1781) describes his brutal treatment by the British while
their prisoner.
With harsh invective, he continued to attack the British and support the
Revolution, most particularly through his work as journalist and editor of The
Freeman’s Journal, an anti-British newspaper. During this time, he became
known as the Poet of the Revolution. After the war, Freneau edited The
New York Daily Advertiser and established and edited the anti-Federalist
journal TThe National Gazette. In 1791, he worked as translating clerk in the
Department of State of Thomas Jefferson, an avowed Democratic-Republican
and then secretary of state. During that time, Freneau also vigorously attacked
the Gazette of the United States, a Federalist vehicle edited by John Fenno
(1751–1798) and supported by Alexander Hamilton, an avowed Federalist
and opponent of Jefferson’s.
Through these critical pieces,
Freneau became known as a
powerful political satirist and is
now considered a forerunner in
satirical journalism. Coinciding
with Jeerson’s withdrawal from
politics in 1793, Freneau’s National
Gazette folded.
Freneau subsequently supported
himself through captaining trading
vessels and farming. He also wrote
and published—by his own hand,
with his own printing press—various
poems and essays, with collections
of his work appearing in 1795
and 1799. The love of nature and
focus on the personal in his poetry
strikes an early Romantic note in
American literature. He oset the
corruption of developing urbanism
through what he described as the
simplicity of Native American life.
Image 3.20 | The National Gazette
His poetry remains remarkable for
Author | Philip Freneau
its concreteness, sensuality, and
Source | Wikimedia Commons
intensity, qualities that herald the
License | Public Domain
work of James Fenimore Cooper,
Page | 567