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The Wild Honey Suckle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wild Honey Suckle is a 1786 poem by American author Philip Freneau. Its style and tone is often considered a reaction to the neoclassicism of poets like Alexander Pope and an early anticipation of Romantic poetry.[1] The poem was first printed on July 6, 1786 in the Columbian Herald.[2]

Themes and critical response

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The poem describes a secluded honeysuckle and makes observations about mortality. Paul Elmer More praised the "unearthly loveliness" of Freneau's "The Wild Honey Suckle" but noted that "even a clever journeyman's hand could alter a word here and there for the better."[3]

References

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  1. ^ V. E. Gibbens (1944). A Note on Three Lyrics of Philip Freneau. Modern Language Notes, Vol. 59, No. 5 (May, 1944), pp. 313-315.
  2. ^ Hiltner, Judith R. (1986). The Newspaper Verse of Philip Freneau: An Edition and Bibliographic Survey. Whitston Pub. Co. Inc. ISBN 978-0-87875-248-5
  3. ^ Arner Rovert D. (1074). Neoclassicism and Romanticism: A Reading of Freneau's" The Wild Honey Suckle" Early American Literature Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring, 1974, pp. 53-61.
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  • The Wild Honey Suckle in Poems written and published during the American revolutionary war, and now republished from the original manuscripts by Philip Morin Freneau