Philip Freneau: Poems Literary Elements

The action in the poem "The Indian Burying Ground" is told from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view.

The poem "The American Soldier" is written in an iambic pentameter form.

The sky is used in the poem "To Mr. Blanchard, The Celebrated Aeronaut In America" as a metaphor for the wonders of modern technology and the ingenuity of man.

We have alliteration in the lines "Vain, foolish man! how vast thy pride,/ How little can your wants supply!" in the poem "On Retirement".

We find an ironic element in the poem "The American Soldier" where the narrator describes the soldier as having an extremely difficult life, barely having enough to eat. This is ironic because the soldier put his life on the line to protect his country yet he was abandoned by it once his service was done.

The poem "The Indian Burying Ground" is a meditative poem.

The action in the poem "The American Soldier" takes place on a field in the middle of the day.

The tone used in "On Retirement" is a neutral one.

The protagonist in "On Retirement" is the man who does not feel the need to have a lot of wealth while the antagonist is the person who made it his life's mission to have as much money as possible.

The major conflict in "To Mr. Blanchard, The Celebrated Aeronaut In America" is between the past and the future.

"The American Soldier" reaches its climax when the soldier dies alone and abandoned in the middle of the field,

By comparing the master of the house in "On Retirement" with a hermit the narrator foreshadows the later description of loneliness and despair which appears in the poem.

At the beginning of "The Indian Burying Ground" the narrator claims that the white man has the power to destroy the Native Americans and the ideas they represent. This is, however, an understatement because the narrator later admits that even though the natives may be killed, their ideas continue to exist and to thrive.

The main allusion which can be found in the poem "The Indian Burying Ground" is that for the Native Americans, being dead is more desirable than being alive since death means peace for them and the absence of conflict with the white person.

The field mentioned in "The American Soldier" is used as a general term to make reference to the struggles the soldier faced throughout his life.

We have a personification in the poem "The Indian Burying Ground" in the line "Activity that knows no rest".

The line "Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune’s shade" from the poem "The American Soldier" contains a hyperbole.

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