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Carly Carlos

9/29/2019

Poetry in Argumentation

With the Revolutionary period in full swing in America, the patriots of New England

were required to choose sides in the feud between the colonists and their English colonizers. This

is the period in which Thomas Paine’s “Liberty Tree” and Hannah Griffitts’s “Upon reading a

Book entitled Common Sense” are written and set in. The personas of both poems believe that

they know what is best for their country but have different opinions on how to reach that goal.

Both speakers generally agree that America’s freedom is something that the colonists

should strive for. This argument is more obvious in Paine’s “Liberty Tree”, as the speaker talks

about the “Liberty Tree” (8) and how it must be protected from “all the tyrannical powers” (26).

In this case, the tyrannical powers are England, and the tree of liberty is planted in Boston,

implying that the colonists must defend their home as well as their rights as men. Paine’s persona

here is triumphant, proud, and idealistic with the intention to rally the colonies together to fight

the oppressive English and gain their independence. On the other hand, the persona in Griffitts’s

“Upon reading a Book…” is less blatant about their agreement in this idea. The persona here is

more disgusted and angrier than Paine’s persona. They are disgusted that Paine’s ideas in

Common Sense are “A deeper Wound at Freedom” (5) than anything that the British have done.

This disgusted tone implies not that the persona doesn’t want freedom for their country, but that

Paine’s ideas aren’t the way to get there. In fact, the persona seems to believe that Paine’s ideas

are bringing the nation farther from freedom than towards it. While Griffitts’s persona doesn’t

provide an answer as to how to properly bring America to freedom, they do make it clear that
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they dislike Paine’s idealistic approach where “The moderate Man is held to publick View” (11).

In other words, Paine’s eagerness to rile up public opinion to a war drowns out the words of

more moderate and thoughtful men, leaving them to be hushed in fear of public opinion turning

on them. The implication here is that Griffitts’s persona believes that the more moderate men

would have the proper answer to work with the British instead of rousing a war.

Thus, Paine’s persona believes that freedom will be won by fighting back their

oppressors, and Griffitts’s persona believes that freedom is best won by not following Paine’s

ideals in Common Sense. Paine’s persona is triumphant and proud, while Griffitts’s persona is

disgusted and angry. While these two differ in ideas on whether or not to fight the English, they

both generally agree that freedom is important for the colonies to obtain.
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Works Cited

Griffitts, Hannah. “Upon Reading a Book Entitled Common Sense.” American Poetry: the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, by David S. Shields, The Library of America, 2007,
pp. 561–562.

Paine, Thomas. “Liberty Tree.” American Poetry: the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, by
David S. Shields, The Library of America, 2007, pp. 614–615.