Freneau's nature lyrics. Freneau's most purely poetical work is a number of really excellent nature lyrics and imaginative poems. Professor Pattee1 speaks eloquently of the evidences of early romanticism in Freneau's poetry, pointing out examples of early romantic influences in "The House of Night," "one of the earliest poems in that dimly lighted region which was soon to be exploited by Coleridge and Poe"; in his sea poems; in his imaginative treatment of Indian life, as in his "Indian Death Song" and "The Indian Burying-Ground"; and above all in his nature lyrics, which were distinctly in the Wordsworthian vein, as "The Dying Elm," "The Sleep of Plants," "To a Honey Bee," "To a Caty-did," and particularly in "The Wild Honeysuckle,” a flawless nature lyric written in 1786, at least a dozen years before Wordsworth and Coleridge published the Lyrical Ballads (1798). "The Wild Honeysuckle," his one almost perfect art lyric, is worthy of full quotation here. THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, No roving foot shall crush thee here, By Nature's self in white arrayed, Smit with those charms, that must decay, Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power 1 Poems of Philip Freneau, 3 vols. Ed. by F. L. Pattee, Princeton, 1902. From morning suns and evening dews The space between is but an hour, Estimate of Freneau. In our enthusiasm for the good qualities of this poem and other excellent lyrics of Freneau's, especially when we recall that the English poet Campbell borrowed a line from "The Indian Burying Ground," "The hunter and the deer-a shade," and Scott enthusiastically praised "The Lament on the Patriots who Fell at Eutaw Springs," himself using a line from this poem in the third canto of Marmion, we are likely to overestimate the work of this early American; but Freneau must after all be ranked as a minor poet. The following paragraph from Professor Pattee's introduction to his excellent edition of Freneau's Poems is a judicious summary. "As to the absolute literary value of Freneau's literary remains, there is room for honest difference of opinion. He certainly is not, if we judge him from what he actually produced, a great poet. But he must in fairness be viewed against the background of his age and environment. Nature had equipped him as she has equipped few other men. He had the poet's creative imagination; he had an exquisite sense of the beautiful; and he had a realization of his own poetic endowments that kept him during a long life constantly true to the muse. Scarcely a month went by in all his life, from his early boyhood, that was not marked by poetic composition. Few poets, even in later and more auspicious days, have devoted their lives more assiduously to song."1 1Poems of Philip Freneau, Vol. I. Introduction, p. xcviii. DRAMA AND FICTION National drama. The drama of the Revolutionary era is mainly significant for its historical value in reflecting the spirit of the times. Thomas Godfrey's The Prince of Parthia, written about 1759 and published in 1765, we mentioned at the close of the colonial period as the first literary drama composed in America. It was played at Philadelphia in 1767, and was, according to Seilhamer, author of History of the American Theater, the first American play that was actually staged by a professional company. In the meantime, of course, many English plays had been acted much earlier; as early as 1715 some references to a theater and plays acted in Williamsburg, Virginia, have been noted; and English plays by a regular company were acted in New York as early as 1732, in Charleston, South Carolina, as early as 1734, and in Philadelphia as early as 1749. Plays on American subjects. Numerous plays dealing with American subjects were written during the period of the Revolution. "Ponteach, or The Savages of America," a play appearing in 1766 and dealing in a satiric way with the white man's cruel and unjust treatment of the simpleminded Indians, has been ascribed on uncertain evidence to Robert Rogers, an English officer in the French and Indian War. Mrs. Mercy Warren (1728-1814), of Massachusetts, the sister of James Otis, wrote several plays on American subjects, the best of which is "The Group" (1775), a comedy satirizing the loyalists. Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748– 1816), of Pennsylvania, the friend and classmate of Philip Freneau and James Madison at the College of New Jersey, was the author of the best literary dramas that appeared during the period of the actual struggle for independence; they are, however, more properly dramatic poems or closet plays than acting dramas. The titles of his plays are "The Battle of Bunker's Hill" (1776) and "The Death of General Montgomery" (1777). William Dunlap. Another dramatist of some distinction was William Dunlap (1766-1839), of New York. He was a practical playwright and theater manager and our first historian of the drama, and his influence was considerable in his day. He wrote some thirty original plays, among them "The Father; or, American Shandyism” (1789), a comedy, and "André" (1798), an historical play in blank verse; he made many adaptations of foreign plays for the American stage; he was a portrait painter of distinction; and he wrote ten or more biographies and critical works.1 Royall Tyler. One other name should be mentioned in connection with early American drama, that of Royall Tyler (1757-1826), who was born and educated in Massachusetts, and later became chief justice of Vermont. He wrote "The Contrast," a comedy which was acted with great success in New York in 1786 and published four years later. It is based on the contrast between native American worth and the silly imitation of foreign conventions. The first typical stage Yankee, in the person of the shrewd New England farmer, Jonathan, speaking in his native dialect, appears in this play. Tyler wrote a number of other plays and farces, and also a prose narrative of adventure called The Algerine Captive (1797), which may be classed with our early novels. Joseph Dennie. Joseph Dennie (1768–1812), whose work has been almost entirely forgotten, exerted considerable influence on the literature of his day, and in particular he deserves to be remembered as the forerunner of Irving. He was called the "American Addison," probably because he 1In an extensive monograph by Dr. O S. Coad, "William Dunlap, A Study of his Life and Work and of his Place in Contemporary Culture," recently published by the Dunlap Society of New York, full lists of all the works of this indefatigable painter, manager, dramatist, and critic are made available. imitated Addison in a series of periodical essays published under the title of the Farrago (a medley) in several village newspapers in New England. Then he published The Lay Preacher (1796), a Series of Essays in The Farmers' Museum, at Walpole, New Hampshire, and later collected them in a volume. In 1801 Dennie became the founder and editor of a literary periodical published in Philadelphia and called The Port Folio. This magazine was one of the most important early literary periodicals published in America, and the longest-lived, its publication being continued until 1827. In The Port Folio Dennie reprinted some of his previously published essays and many new ones. He encouraged the development of polite literature and was generally looked upon as the central figure in the literary circles of Philadelphia.1 Sentimental novels. A number of tearful and highly sentimental novels, principally by a school of women writers, appeared toward the close of the eighteenthcentury. Among these were Sarah Morton's The Power of Sympathy, or The Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth (1789); Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple, a Tale of Truth (1790), Trials of the Human Heart (1795), and many other stories; and Hannah Foster's The Coquette, or The History of Eliza Wharton, a Novel Founded on Fact (1797). Of the many sentimental novels of the time, Charlotte Temple, which was the most popular in its day and which has proved the most tenacious of life, being republished in over one hundred editions up to 1905, is typical. It is the pathetic story of love and innocence, betrayal, desertion, and death from a broken heart. These highly colored and overwrought narratives, made up largely of unreal characters and unnatural situations usually said to be based on truth, 1See Dr. H. M. Ellis's extensive monograph "Joseph Dennie and his Circle, a Study in American Literature from 1792 to 1812," Bulletin, 1915, No. 40, University of Texas, Austin. |