20 pages • 40-minute read
Barbara Frietchie
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
The poem is written in rhyming couplets. This means that Line 1 rhymes with Line 2, Line 3 with Line 4, and so on. The rhymes are known as perfect rhymes, with both the last vowel and consonant sounds rhyming: “corn” and “morn” (Lines 1 and 2), “sweep” and “deep” (Lines 5 and 6), “fall” and “wall” (Lines 9 and 10). On one occasion, the poet employs poetic license, using what is called an eye-rhyme, when the vowels are the same but are pronounced differently. This is “tost” and “host” (Lines 45-46). In many eye-rhymes, the two words were once pronounced in a way that rhymed, but pronunciation has shifted over time.
For the meter, the poet makes use of a combination of iambic and trochaic tetrameter. Tetrameter means that there are four poetic feet in each line. An iambic foot is comprised of an unstressed (or unaccented) syllable followed by a stressed (or accented) syllable. A trochaic foot consists of the reverse: a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Examples of iambic tetrameter include: “The clustered spires of Frederick stand” (Line 3) (the word “Frederick” scans as two syllables, not three) and “‘But spare your country’s flag,’ she said” (Line 36).
In about half of the lines, however, the poet makes a substitution in the first foot, beginning the line with a trochee rather than an iamb: “Flapped in the morning wind: the sun” (Line 18); “Bowed with her fourscore years and ten” (Line 19), “Bravest of all in Frederick town” (Line 19); and “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head” (Line 35). Not infrequently, the poet continues this substitution of the first foot with a trochee in the second foot as well, creating a line that begin with two trochees: “Horse and foot, into Frederick town” (Line 12) and “Forty flags with their silver stars” (Line 13). One line, “Stonewall Jackson riding ahead” (Line 24) consists of three trochees in the first three feet, but it stops short of being a trochaic tetrameter because the final foot is an iamb. Every line of the poem ends with an iambic foot.
Anaphora
Anaphora is the repetition of the same expression at the beginning of two or more lines. There are two examples in the poem, both used for emphasis and the building of an effect. First is “Forty flags with their silver stars, / Forty flags with their crimson bars” (Line 13-14). By repeating how many U.S. flags flew before the rebels arrived, the poet emphasizes the timidity of the men who took the time to remove each one of them, in contrast to Barbara Frietchie’s courage in going it alone. The second example also emphasizes Barbara’s courage: “All day long through Frederick street / Sounded the tread of marching feet: / All day long that free flag tost / Over the heads of the rebel host” (Lines 43-46). The repetition also emphasizes that Barbara Frietchie’s courage was not in vain; it had a definite, impressive effect, and all the rebel soldiers must have seen it.
Pathetic Fallacy
Pathetic Fallacy is a common poetic technique that attributes human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects. The pathetic fallacy is often used to show how nature reacts to or comments on human actions and events. In Line 15, the sun “looked down” at noon on the scene below and saw no flags. Nature also loves the flag as much as the speaker and Barbara Frietchie do. The torn flag that flies from Barbara’s attic window is taken up by the “loyal winds that loved it well” (Line 48); and the setting sun offers the flag a “warm good-night” (Line 50). Nature is thus presented as an enthusiastic supporter of the Unionist cause.
Apostrophe
An apostrophe is a figure of speech in which an absent person, inanimate object or abstract idea is addressed directly. In this poem, it is an inanimate object—the flag—that the speaker addresses directly. This occurs in the final three couplets. The speaker asks the flag to wave over Barbara Frietchie’s grave and hopes that “Peace and order and beauty” (Line 57) will gather round “thy symbol of light and law” (Line 58), and that the stars in the heavens should forever look down on “thy stars below” (Line 60). The speaker addresses the flag with great reverence as “thy,” as if it is some quasi-divine entity, giving the flag itself the same agency and honor as Barbara Frietchie herself and the country she stands for.
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