The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 2

Philip Morin FreneauProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5

Word count: 569K words
Chapters: 57

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 2 (of 3)Author: Freneau, Philip Morin, 1752-1832,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 8, 2012

Editor's review

This is the second of three volumes comprising the complete poems of Philip Freneau, poet of the American Revolution, and an important primary text for the study of early American literature and the founding era. Freneau is often regarded as one of the representative figures of early American national literature; his poems engage with political satire, patriotic sentiment, natural observation, and commentary on his times, offering readers firsthand material for understanding public feeling and literary expression in late eighteenth-century America. As a public-domain electronic edition released by Project Gutenberg, this volume makes it easy to search for specific poem titles and lines and is suitable for scholarly citation or classroom selection. The poetry itself, however, carries pronounced period rhetoric and political argument, and together with the original English and eighteenth-century versification, offers limited appeal to general readers. Without some grounding in American history or early American literature, the reading experience can easily feel fragmented. It is best treated as a reference and research resource rather than a collection for casual reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students majoring in American literature or American history who need to study poetry texts from the founding era
University teachers and researchers working on eighteenth-century English poetry and political satire
Readers who need public-domain English poetry material for translation practice or course selection
Readers interested in the cultural history of the American Revolution who are able to read the English original

Not a good fit for

General readers seeking a Chinese translation who are unfamiliar with American historical background
Literature enthusiasts looking for light entertainment and preferring modern or contemporary poetry
Middle-school readers with limited English reading ability who need line-by-line annotations

Reading tips

Consult Freneau's biography and the background of the American Revolution before turning to individual poems; understanding will be smoother.
There is no need to read every poem in the volume in order; begin with political or nature poems by theme to lower the threshold.
Note the pronouns, allusions, and political phrasing in the poems and keep brief notes for ease of scholarly citation.
For classroom use, pair short poems with historical documents for comparative reading and discuss the relationship between poetry and its era.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can this volume be read on its own, or must one start with Volume 1?

It can be read on its own. This is the second of three volumes and contains part of the poetry collection; it is not a continuous narrative work. Readers can certainly begin with poems in this volume that interest them, though familiarity with the previous volume and the overall editorial plan will help in grasping the structure of the complete works.

What value does Freneau's poetry still have for readers today?

Its main value lies in literary history and historical understanding. His poems reflect public sentiment, political debate, and the formation of early national literature during the American Revolution and are important material for studying late eighteenth-century American culture. For general readers, its aesthetic appeal is less immediate than that of modern or contemporary poetry; it is better read with historical questions in mind.

Does the Gutenberg edition include notes and an introduction?

Public-domain electronic texts released by Project Gutenberg generally present the original text and usually do not include detailed modern scholarly annotations, introductions, or textual notes. Readers therefore need to supply information on the author's life, historical background, and poetic allusions themselves and cannot rely on the edition for interpretation.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Philip Morin Freneau Author · American · 1752–1832

Philip Morin Freneau (1752–1832) was an American poet, essayist, and editor, known as the "Poet of the American Revolution." Born in New York in 1752, he graduated from Princeton in 1771. During the War of Independence he wrote many anti-British patriotic poems; "The British Prison Ship" exposed British cruelty and was influential at the time. From 1791 he edited the Republican newspaper the National Gazette. He died in Monmouth County, New Jersey. His representative work, The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution, collects his poems in three volumes, largely on revolutionary, political, and patriotic themes; the library holds Volumes 1 to 3. Public information on other details of his life is limited.