Frances Harper: Poetic Analysis, Antislavery Politics, and Vernacular Voice

Poetic Structure in "President Lincoln's Proclamation of Freedom" (1865). This poem, written about 1865, is a composition of nine quatrains. In lyrical expression of hope for the future, the strongest structural characteristics of this poem are rhyme and repetition. The rhyme scheme is abcb. We have, of course, seen such a scheme in much poetry from Harper; however, in this poem Harper insists upon pure rhyming elements. The rhyming pairs of each quatrain are years/tears, bright/light, Caroline/shine, crime/time, key/free, light/light, dust/just, away/day, light/sight.

The first point we are led to notice is the absence of slant rhyme. Slant rhymes can be great innovations; they often insist upon the unexpected. Pure rhymes are clear and bold; they call attention to the poet's versification and intentions. The pure rhyming pairs are metronomes; they establish a pattern, both aural and visual. They are neither opposites nor synonyms; by themselves, they establish no true sense of meaning. Their purpose appears to lie in their ability to call attention to the meaning that inheres in each stanza. In this way they work in concert with the repetition of certain elements of the poem. The word shall, which appears 15 times in the poem, sharply underscores the poet's emphasis on a determined future for the newly freed slaves. It appears in all but one stanza and is connected to images of light and processes of enlightenment that, the poet intimates, attend emancipation.

The reference to "the sun-kissed brow of labor" should be read in light of Harper's poem "Free Labor" (discussed later). Self-determination, freedom to participate as workers in the public marketplace, and the moral attributes of labor (through which one contributes to society) are all emphasized in the poem. The use of anaphora in the poem (primarily through the repetition of the phrase "It shall" in the first three stanzas) grants this piece the quality of an anthem. Though the anaphora breaks off in the middle of the poem, the rhythm reminds one of the strident tones of Julia Ward Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (1862).

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Research the condition of free laborers and artisans of African-American descent during the Reconstruction period, and write a paper that expands upon the concept of "free labor" expressed in Harper's poetry. One book that might be helpful to such a project is Black Reconstruction in America: 1860–1800 (1935), by W. E. B. DuBois.

2. Explain the way Harper personifies oppression in this poem (see stanzas 6 and 7). How does her use of personification add strength to her poem?

3. Discuss the sorts of imagery at work in this piece. How, for instance, are colors used? What effectiveness lies in the imagery of mountains? How are light and darkness juxtaposed?

Biblical Defiance in "Vashti" (1870). This poem exemplifies Harper's ideas regarding the intersection of her Christian beliefs and her poetic leanings. She bases this poem on a scene from the first chapter of the Book of Esther in the Old Testament. Harper's focus is not on Esther, an orphaned Jewish maiden who became queen of Persia and thus was able to save the Jews from persecution. Instead, Harper focuses on Esther's predecessor, Vashti, who relinquished her crown in lieu of debasing herself before a throng of royalty.

This poem allows Harper obliquely to expound her beliefs in both temperance and "true womanhood," for the biblical verses she expands upon tell us that Vashti's husband, Ahasuerus (Xerxes), king of Persia, was inebriated ("The king was merry with wine," Esther 1:10). Vashti's refusal marks her as a woman of honor in Harper's eyes. More important, her refusal to unveil herself led the king to issue a decree that would strengthen male dominance in his provinces, demonstrating that he and his counselors felt threatened by Vashti's defiance.

Although the unknown author of this historical book of the Bible grants Vashti no voice (she does not speak there; she only—but importantly—defies Xerxes), Harper uses her 17-stanza poem to grant Vashti speech. In alternating stanzas of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, Vashti speaks and acts through an abcb rhyme scheme. The swiftness of the poem underscores the urgency of her situation and reinforces her right to stand upon her moral principles: She would rather give up her diadem than live in shame as queen. She refuses to be objectified as merely one of the king's possessions. Though the Bible does not depict Vashti's actual departure, Harper shows her leaving under the light of grace, a "woman who could bend to grief, / But would not bow to shame."

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Harper's poem about Vashti may be called an encomium, or a laudatory poem that celebrates a historical person. Compare the first chapter of the Book of Esther to Harper's poem and explain the importance of voice in the poem.

2. Read a few works by Harper (the short story "The Two Offers," along with other works mentioned here, will suffice), and identify core elements of Harper's style. What sorts of words does she enjoy using? How does her word choice, along with her use of poetic structure, convey her values?

Reconstruction Politics in "An Appeal to the American People" (1871). Like "Free Labor," "An Appeal to the American People" was probably written during the Reconstruction era in the year 1871, though it differs from "Free Labor" in form and theme. It consisted of seven sestets and uses a rhyme scheme of aabbcc. The poet calls for the maintenance of democratic rights achieved in the aftermath of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Obviously, the poet responds to the threat of the Ku Klux Klan when she writes of the "traitor who stands / With the crimson on his hands, / Scowling 'neath his brow of hate, / On our weak and desolate, / With the blood-rust on the knife / Aimed at the nation's life."

In penning these words, Harper took a risk that, in real terms, could have jeopardized her life. Ida B. Wells, who had documented lynchings by the Klan and lynch mobs, would be driven from her newspaper office in Tennessee by threats against her life in the 1890s. The racist hatred of the Klan would be infamously memorialized and glorified in 1915 by the filmmaker D. W. Griffith, whose film Birth of a Nation depicted Klan members as the restorers and protectors of the nation's ideals. Harper's work would provide a counterargument to the diatribe of Griffith, and her lectures and poetry served as an example to Wells, who traveled to England to gain support for her antilynching campaign. Forcefully Harper's poem speaks to the democratic moral sensibilities of the American people. In this spirit she appeals to the reader not to allow the "traitor" to "write above our slain / They have fought and died in vain."

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Do a library search for the work of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and write a paper discussing the role of Harper and Wells-Barnett as 19th-century black feminists in the antilynching movement.

2. Identify those elements of this poem that provide the basis for Harper's use of the word traitor. In what ways do the injustices that she details in the poem constitute traitorous conduct? Can you identify groups in contemporary American society that might qualify as traitorous in the same sense?

Vernacular Innovation in "Aunt Chloe's Politics" (1872). Published in Sketches of Southern Life, "Aunt Chloe's Politics" is one of a number of "Aunt Chloe" poems. In them Aunt Chloe emerges as a plainspoken moralist and appears to be a composite sketch of wise African-American women Harper encountered during her travels through the South. The Aunt Chloe who appears in this collection of poetry undoubtedly serves as a model for Aunt Linda, a character who figures importantly in Harper's most accomplished work of fiction, Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted (1892). It is reasonable to assume that the women Harper encountered during her visits to the South, and who served collectively as the basis for the characters of Aunt Chloe and Aunt Linda, did not match up well with some of the standard features of Harper's usual poetic style. While she maintains her use of iambic meter and alternating lines of three and four iambic feet, she seems to have relinquished her use of anaphora, traditional imagery of light, and so forth.

In its place we find the consistent play of black vernacular speech. Aunt Chloe's language is ripe with such commonplaces as double descriptives ("mighty ugly," found in the first stanza, and "honey-fugle," appearing in the second stanza). It is important to note that while these were commonplaces in the everyday speech of the African-American working class, they were ingenious innovations in Western poetic forms. Chloe's expressive use of the structure "looking (someone) in the face" foreshadows Zora Neale Hurston's use and discussion of the phrase "to kill (someone) dead." In Hurston's essay "Characteristics of Negro Expression" (1934), the writer, anthropologist, and sociologist (whose most famous work is the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God) notes that the repetitive nature of such phrases is purposeful, serving as both a flourish of language and an underscoring of the action involved. Certainly, one would expect that if we look at someone, we look at that person's face unless we indicate otherwise; similarly, if someone is killed by whatever means, that person is dead. The repetition in "kill dead" is superfluous but lends an emphatic character to the language. The phrase "to school our children," appearing in the fourth stanza, is an exemplary verbalization of a noun; this usage is seminal to African-American vernacular expression and spread in prevalence from primarily African-American communities to general use throughout the South.

With her series of poems on Aunt Chloe, Harper won praise from even her harshest critics. J. Saunders Redding, who had roundly criticized her poems as lacking in force and originality, saw Harper's vernacular poems as groundbreaking. Harper had, Redding reluctantly admitted, anticipated Paul Laurence Dunbar's use of dialect and James Weldon Johnson's attention to folk speech. Further, she had done so without becoming ensnared in what Redding, Johnson, and others called the trap of dialect poetry. According to these critics, dialect poetry could do little more than express humor and pathos. Harper had succeeded in moving beyond the limitations of dialect poetry as a literary convention.

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Read Zora Neale Hurston's essay "Characteristics of Negro Expression," and use Hurston's argument to explain Harper's incorporation of vernacular expression in this poem.

2. Analyze Harper's poem for its use of metaphor and other instances of figurative language. Consider especially the ways her use of figurative language further establishes Aunt Chloe as a practical person who shrewdly draws on familiar experiences in establishing her point of view.

3. Read the Aunt Chloe poems from Sketches of Southern Life and discuss development of this character. How does Aunt Chloe serve as a voice for Harper's ideals of womanhood, morality, equality, and Christianity?

4. Explain how the references to selling one's race and "buying up each other" function in this poem. Think especially of the historical and cultural context in which Harper was writing.