Freneau, Philip Morin | Jane Donahue Eberwein (essay date 1978)
Jane Donahue Eberwein (essay date 1978)
SOURCE: Eberwein, Jane Donahue. “Philip Freneau (1752-1832).” In Early American Poetry: Selections from Bradstreet, Taylor, Dwight, Freneau, and Bryant, pp. 190-20. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978.
[In the following excerpt, Eberwein discusses Freneau's life and career, suggesting that his various activities as editor, farmer, and sea captain influenced his writing in various ways.]
Born the same year as Timothy Dwight and, like him, a revolutionary patriot, Philip Freneau was nonetheless a distinctly different poet—different in values, voice, and literary style. He represented a newer strain in American thought: more liberal, more secular, and more attuned to change than the wit from Connecticut, a place where, Freneau once wrote, rhymes “Come rattling down on Greenfield's reverend son” and where the climate somehow encouraged large families, huge pumpkins, and lengthy...
[The entire page is 3710 words long]
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