PHILLIP FRENEAU(JANUARY 2, 1752 – DECEMBER 18, 1832)

"Poet of the American Revolution"

Childhood and Schooling

Freneau’s father wanted him to become a member of the clergy

He tried this path but eventually succumbed to his greatest love, which was literature

As his roommate and close friend James Madison recognized early, Freneau's wit and verbal skills would make him a powerful wielder of the pen and a formidable adversary on the battlefields of print

First Political Writings

Political concerns led Madison, Freneau, and their friends Hugh Henry Brackenridge and William Bradford, Jr., to revive the defunct Plain Dealing Club as the American Whig Society

Charged with literary and political enthusiasm, Freneau and Brackenridge collaborated on a rollicking, picturesque narrative, Father Bombo's Pilgrimage to Mecca in Arabia, which presents comic glimpses of life in eighteenth-century America

This piece, recently acquired by Princeton and published by the University Library (1975), may well be the first work of prose fiction written in America

After this he continued to write other political pieces.

Freneau Continues Writing……. Freneau tried teaching but hated it He continued to struggle with balancing

his political side and a forthcoming romantic side regarding writing

He eventually left for the West Indies in 1776 for two years to write about nature and beauty

Suddenly in 1778, he returned to New Jersey and joined the militia and sailed the Atlantic as a ship captain

Personal Life

By 1790, at the age of thirty-eight, with two collections of poetry in print and a reputation as a fiery propagandist and skillful sea captain, Freneau decided to settle down

He married Eleanor Forman and tried to withdraw to a quiet job as an assistant editor in New York

But politics called again, and he joined friends to write several influential pieces

Later Years

Freneau withdrew again in 1801, when Jefferson was elected president

He retired to his farm and returned occasionally to the sea

During his last thirty years, he worked on his poems, wrote essays attacking the greed and selfishness of corrupt politicians, and sold pieces of his lands to produce a small income

It had been in the few stolen moments of the hectic 1780's that he found the inspiration for his best poems, such as "The Indian Burying Ground" and "The Wild Honey-Suckle", a beautiful lyric which established him as an important American precursor of the Romantics

Freneau’s Overall Influence

Most students of Freneau's life and writing agree that he could have produced much more poetry of high literary merit had he not expended so much energy and talent for his country's political goals

In a way, though, he had fulfilled his father's hopes for him, for he had devoted his life to public service as a guardian of the morals of his society and as a spokesman for the needs of its people.

Indian Burying Ground

Indian Pictures