A Study Guide for Richard Wilbur's "On Freedom's Ground"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Richard Wilbur's "On Freedom's Ground," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535830027

Book preview

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On Freedom’s Ground

Richard Wilbur

1986

Introduction

Richard Wilbur originally created On Freedom’s Ground as the libretto of a cantata, which was specifically written for the yearlong celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. It premiered on October 28, 1986, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, exactly one hundred years after the day on which the statue was first dedicated. After William Schuman, the composer, was unable to find a poem, which he felt would adequately convey the statue’s importance, he asked Wilbur to create an original work for the occasion. At first, Wilbur was reluctant. In a New York Times article, he explained his hesitation: Great God! What a wealth of clichés are suggested by this theme. How hard it will be to be the least fresh, the least worthy of the subject. Eventually, however, he accepted the challenge. The poem was later included in his 1988 Pulitzer Prize–winning volume, New and Collected Poems.

The poem is divided into five separate sections, each covering a different aspect of the struggle for liberty in the United States. The first describes the land before the arrival of the settlers from Europe. The next focuses on the American Revolution and the friendship between the United States and France during this time. The third section begins with the soldier’s sacrifice. It continues, however, by noting how this country has frequently denied that sacrifice when those hard won freedoms were withheld from certain groups. However, the section concludes with hope, stating that the willingness to acknowledge wrongdoing can lead to change. The fourth section celebrates the different immigrants through their music and dance. Finally, Wilbur categorizes the people of the United States as immigrants still, bravely voyaging into the future.

Author Biography

Richard Wilbur was born on March 1, 1921, in New York, and spent the first two years of his life in New York City, a period he described as spent on a fire escape overlooking the Hudson River. His family then moved to a pre-revolutionary war stone house on a farm in North Caldwell, New Jersey. Although it was not far from the