Christopher Columbus, “Columbus to Ferdinand”
Freneau would definitely be out of step with today’s perspective toward Christopher Columbus. Freneau actually believed that Columbus had not received enough historical credit for the creation of America and even took to referring to America on many occasions as Columbia. This poem may well have been instrumental in transforming Columbus into the central definitive figure of the Age of the Exploration as it invests with bravery, courage and vision in advance of first setting sail for uncharted territories nobody was even sure existed.
John Paul Jones, “On the Memorable Victory”
Judging from his subject matter, it appears evident enough that Freneau experienced a certain call to the sea which even being held prisoner aboard a British ship during his own period as a sailor could not diminish. Freneau writes of many historical figures, but seems to have a special regard for men of the sea. Like Columbus, John Paul Jones is painted in starkly highlight heroic shades in this stirring account of a naval victory which gave rise to one of the most iconic quotes in American history: “I have not yet begun to fight.”
Sir Toby, “To Sir Toby”
“To Sir Toby” is a poem of moral outrage. The outrage is directed toward the titular figure, the owner of a sugar plantation in Jamaica exploiting slave labor so that he may live high on the hog off the blood and sweat of others. While Toby is the object of the poetic indignation, the true subject of Freneau’s verse are the slaves whose horrific conditions occupy most of the dense imagery which makes up the bulk of the poem.
The Angry Zealot, “To an Angry Zealot”
Like many of those men who played key roles in shaping the destiny of a new nation, the Poet of the Revolution moved quickly to separate religious faith from organized religion. The dim view which Freneau held of the ritualistic institutions of religious dogma prompted the publication of this response poem in which bears the inscription (or perhaps subtitle), “In Answer to Sundry Virulent Charges.” The subject of the matter can be termed almost a legal matter as Freneau confronts charges made by one Mr. Russel that the National Gazette had been repeated publishing material deemed to have ridiculed religion and vilified specific members of the clergy.
King George III, “A Prophecy”
The appearance of the King of England in this particular poem is particularly interesting in the way he is presented. The opening line reads: “When a certain great king, whose initial is G,” and the monarch’s full name never once appears. The poem is exactly what it promises to be: a prediction that by 1783 hardly anyone will even realize King George still lives and
“in the year eighty-six the affair will be over,
And he shall eat turnips that grow in Hanover.”
The “affair” to which the speaker refers and which forms the underlying foundation of for his prophetic message is the apparently all-but-now-forgotten certainty among a large segment of the British population that even though victory was already within grasp by the time the poem was published, the American Revolution was not yet won and would certainly collapse entirely by 1786.
