Hayden’s American (innovative) sonnet, “Frederick Douglass,” achieves its message with a sestet and an octave, in reverse order from the Italian sonnet.
Sestet: “When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful”
The sestet, first six lines, offers a series of five adverbial “when” clauses, all focusing on freedom: when it is ours, when it belongs to all, when it is instinct, when it is finally won, and when it is more than a political topic.
With the first clause, the speaker portrays freedom, liberty, as “this beautiful / and terrible thing.” He avers that liberty for the human being is as necessary as the air he breathes, and it is as much a tool for life as the earth itself.
In the second clause, he suggests that eventually freedom will, in fact, belong to everyone. Not just a privileged few will be able to use this useful tool and breathe the air of liberty, as they all need to do. Freedom is not just a luxury for some, but also a requirement for every man, woman, and child of every race, creed, or class.
In the third clause, the speaker proposes that freedom must become “truly instinct.” It is not something worn on the sleeve or a badge on the chest; it is part of the “brain matter,” and it is as close the human being as the beating of the heart, “diastole, systole.”
The fourth clause renders the literal fact, “when it is finally won,” and the fifth clause offers a breathtaking, plain truth that even offers a humorous description: “when it is more / than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians.” What an irony that a need so vital to everyone could become the “gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians”!
Octave: “this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro”
The speaker then moves to the culmination of all those fundamentals framed in the five adverbial “when” clauses in the sestet. When all that has taken place and freedom is won, Frederick Douglass will “be remembered.”
Historically, Frederick Douglass was, in fact, a “former slave.” He managed to escape captivity, learned to read, and later worked tirelessly for abolition and freedom for all people. The speaker of Hayden’s poem captures a crisp portrait of Douglass, “this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro / beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world / where none is lonely, none hunted, alien, / this man, superb in love and logic.”
Douglass penned his autobiography, which became a bestseller and has never been out of print. And the speaker in Hayden’s poem offers a tribute to the fearless leader. The speaker claims that Douglass will not be remembered only in flowery rhetoric or in bronze statues, but more importantly the former slave’s life will shine in the lives that “grow[ ] out of his life.”
The lives that will be beneficiaries of his legacy of liberty will pay homage to the man as no rhetoric or statue could. The lives that Douglass’ efforts will affect are the lives that will “flesh[ ] [out] [Douglass’] dream of the beautiful, needful thing.”
Another Hayden article: Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”: A Nearly Perfect Poem
