Daniel Hansen
Dr. Coronado
English
451
October 29th,
2015
Freneau About The Water
The American
Revolution is covered, and etched into our brains, from the time that we are
very young. Washington is our nation’s father and savior, and without him,
America might not be as it is today. Most who lived during the Revolution had
to find entertainment in hugely different ways from how we find it today. They
didn’t have televisions or cell phones, and with no electricity, their reading
was saved for the daytime. While we’re on the subject of reading, most people
got their fix through the newspapers. A man by the name of Philip Freneau, who
was sometimes called the “Poet of the American Revolution,” was very influential
in keeping morale up while America was in the midst of gaining their
independence from Britain. However, Freneau was a sea captain, and having
traveled many different places on the sea, he had written many different poems
involving the water. Most of these poems are glanced over, because of his
poetry on the Revolution. No poem of Freneau’s is more powerful than “On A
Honey Bee,” because it shows the depth at which Freneau could write. His literature
may be read in American patriotic books, but this poem on a lake should be more
revered, for it encapsulates the water as an entity of feeble strength, rather
than a body of great power.
Freneau was born
on January 2, 1752 in New York City. He studied at Princeton with an emphasis
on religion, but soon found a different calling. During his time at Princeton,
his roommate, James Madison, the eventual fourth President of the United
States, found his wit to be sharp and steered him towards the direction of writing.
Freneau had always fancied himself a good writer, but it wasn’t until Madison,
Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and William Bradford, Jr., and he revived the Plain
Dealing Club as the American Whig Society that Freneau found a true talent for
writing political satire. He worked with Brackenridge on numerous projects
while in school together, including “The Rising Glory of America,” a great poem
that signaled the revolution for America and its people. After his time at
Princeton, Freneau spent much of his time writing more patriotic poetry. He
found the American politics to be overbearing, though, and set sail to the West
Indies in 1776. Thus began his poetry of the sea. When he returned to America
in 1778, he set out again on the sea with a militia, captaining a ship. He was
captured by the British for six weeks, and it is after this point that Freneau
turns his poetry into more Romantic ideas and representations. After his work on the sea, Freneau decided to
settle down. However, that was short lived. Madison and Jefferson wanted
Freneau to open his own newspaper in Philadelphia to combat the politically opposite-sided
paper of John Fenno. Freneau started the National
Gazette, and it was a major success. Jefferson had high praise for the Gazette, and felt it brought the
Constitution back from going towards “monarchy.” After his political endeavors
settled, Freneau retired once again to his farm, occasionally returning to the
sea. During this time, he gave credit to the 1780’s as his inspiration for his
writing. All that he had been through had given him many great ideas for his
writing, such as “The Indian Burial Ground” and “The Wild Honey Sickle.” Many
believe these poems to be the foundation for American Romanticism. Freneau died
on December 18, 1832, at 80 years old. He froze to death trying to get back
home, and is buried in the Philip Morin Freneau Cemetery on Poet's Drive in
Matawan, New Jersey.
There’s no
concrete date for when Freneau wrote “On A Honey Bee,” but it is one of the lesser
known poems of his. The poem illustrates the life of a bee, and how it has
wandered off the path to find his wine glass. From that, there isn’t a direct
connection to a lake, but what makes the poem an important part of maritime
literature is its imagery. Freneau uses images of the water to illustrate that
the bee’s lost its way. In the first stanza, Freneau begins with these images.
He writes:
Thou, born to sip the lake or spring,
Or quaff the waters of the stream,
Why hither come on vagrant wings?
Does Bacchus tempting seem
Did he, for you, the glass prepare?
Will
I admit you to a share? (Freneau Lines 1-6)
Freneau starts the poem with the
water. The bee is meant to drink water, not wine. Of course, this is meant to
invoke a sense of the bee feeling lost. This first stanza does not do much in
terms of maritime literature, and yet, the mention of water is meant to show
how easily a bee can be thrown off course. Now, the bee is a metaphor for human
beings, and how we all are meant to stay towards something, and end up losing
our way. The lake being the source of safety and energy for the bee enables the
water to become a place of safety, rather than a dangerous place.
Later in
the poem, Freneau gives us another example of the water being feeble, when
comparing it to the wine.
Yet take not oh! too deep a drink,
And in the ocean die;
Here bigger bees than you might sink,
Even bees full six feet high.
Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said.
To perish in a sea of red. (Freneau Lines 25-30)
Comparing
the wine in his glass as an ocean, he’s turning nature into something that is
small in strength. When thinking of this stanza in terms of humans, I likened
it to people who get greedy and take more than they need. Soon, they will sink,
because they’ve taken too much of something that they don’t need. There’s also
imagery of Amenhotep II, the Pharaoh of Egypt during the time of the Exodus.
I’d like
to focus on the aspect of Freneau relating the bee to humans. There’s clearly
an alliteration to human nature in this poem, whether it’s the question “Did
wars distress, or labours vex,” things that bees hardly do, or the
straight-forward mention of men, “And drown the griefs of men or bees.” Through
nature, we get a sense that the bee, or humans, are thrown around, and get lost
on their path. Wine is made from natural ingredients, and yet, it’s made by
humans to produce an effect. When thinking of this idea, Lewis Leary, when
talking about nature in Freneau’s poems, uses interesting wording that I want
to examine. He writes, “…some of Freneau’s loveliest lines, early or late,
speak of the beneficence, the beauty, and the baleful power of nature, which
guarantees but frail duration to a flower, a person, or a beast-a nature that
is kindly but that may also, like people, wreck terrifying havoc…” (Leary, 157).
Leary sees Freneau’s poetry as creating nature as more humanistic in that it is
calm, except for when you anger it. “On A Honey Bee” is a moment of calmness
for nature, but from it, I get the sense that it is not nature’s fault if you
die. Rather, it is your own fault for veering off of nature’s path.
“On A
Honey Bee” also uses a couple different references to Greek Mythology. In the
first stanza, we get a mention of Bacchus, and in the last stanza, Freneau
mentions Charon. The line is, “Go, take your seat in Charon's boat,” Charon is the
ferryman for Hades, and is responsible to bring souls across the rivers Styx
and Acheron that divided the world from the living and the dead. I find this
illustration an interesting one, because the bee is going to drown, and then be
taken in a boat to the dead, almost an oxymoronic symbol. One of the things
that this poem does well is integrates so many different theologies and
histories, whether it’s Greek Mythology or Bible mythology, Freneau has a way
to spin many different themes into a small idea.
Freneau
spent his whole life writing, and most of the things he wrote that he is
remembered for is his patriotic writing. He helped America get through the
Revolution with his writing, but also physically, by managing a ship. He
credited by some as being the start of Romanticism in America, and yet, “On A
Honey Bee” illustrates his knack of turning something so small into a large
landscape of different metaphors. It is for this reason that I believe “On A
Honey Bee” should be included in maritime literature. Not just for its mention
of water, but for the shear versatility of his writing.
Works Cited
Freneau, Philip. “On A Honey Bee.” Early Americas Digital Archive. 2002.
Web.
Elliott, Emory. “Freneau, Philip.” Princeton.edu. Web.
Leary,
Lewis. "The Dream Visions Of Philip Freneau." Early American
Literature 11.2 (1976): 156-173. MLA International Bibliography. Web.
On A Honey Bee by Philip Freneau
On A Honey Bee by Philip Freneau
No comments:
Post a Comment