Barbara Frietchie

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1863

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Flag

The flag of the United States represents something beyond itself. It is not just a piece of cloth with a distinctive design featuring stars and stripes. The symbolism of the flag is a very important part of the poem’s patriotic meaning. What the flag symbolizes is the reason why Barbara Frietchie takes the actions and speaks the words that she does, and why the speaker is so moved by the story he tells. This symbolism is implied throughout the poem. The fact that the flag, though torn, continues to fly all day as the rebel troops pass by shows that the Union still exists and therefore so does freedom. This is made explicit in the final eight couplets. In Line 45, the flag is described as “that free flag”, which means that it symbolizes freedom, both literally, and because it is free from the threat of being removed. The flag has such significance that even nature, in the form of the wind and the sun, loves it (Lines 48-50). Line 56 repeats the symbolism, as the speaker addresses the flag directly: “Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!” This is developed further in the couplet, “Peace and order and beauty draw / Round thy symbol of light and law” (Lines 57-58). Thus, the flag symbolizes both light—in the sense of enlightenment and the dispelling of the darkness of ignorance—and law, the notion that the United States is a country governed by just laws. In this respect, the flag is so powerful that it attracts to itself the desirable qualities of “Peace and order and beauty.” Through the symbolism of the flag, the patriotism of the poem is made explicitly clear, understood as the deep love of one’s country.

Ballad

The ballad is an old literary form. The earliest ballads, known as folk or popular ballads, were recited or sung and not written down. They were narrative forms that told a dramatic story, with the action often developing through the use of dialogue. Later came the literary ballad, which was popular in the Romantic period. This type of ballad was more sophisticated in terms of the literary techniques employed. The most famous example of a literary ballad is likely “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798). John Keats’s ballad, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” (1819) is another literary ballad from the same period.

In American literature, Whittier’s contemporary Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a series of Norse ballads, including “The Challenge of Thor” (1863). Whittier had a longtime interest in folklore and ballads. He was an admirer of Scottish poet Robert Burns and would likely have known Burns’s “The Kirk of Scotland’s Alarm: A Ballad” (1789). Whittier also wrote many ballads himself, including Ballads of New England (1870).

Ballads are commonly written in the form of quatrains, known as the ballad stanza. A quatrain consists of four lines of verse; usually just the second and fourth lines rhyme in a ballad, as in Whittier’s ballad, “The Changeling.” Whittier’s ballad “Kallundborg Church” is also in quatrains but with a different rhyme scheme. Ballads can also be written, like “Barbara Frietchie,” in couplets, which Whittier also uses in “The Brown Dwarf of Rügen.”