Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “No. IV. La Fayette”

Coleridge wrote a series of sonnets praising notable individuals from history. This particular sonnet features the Marquis de La Fayette, a noted French military leader. La Fayette actually gained fame fighting in the American Revolution. Back in France, he served as the Vice President French Estates-General, a meeting of three classes, the clergy, nobility and commoners, to discuss natural rights. The assembly drafted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” a document similar to America’s Declaration of Independence, claiming equal rights for men.

The Sonnet itself follows the song of a bird, ostensibly hailing the new dawn of freedom. The bird’s song is heard from far off in the morning, and the caged bird that hears it in a distant land joins its song. Even without relation to the singing bird, the caged bird rejoices in the freedom of his fellow fowl. The speaker then addresses La Fayette, praising him for waking his own country from is “long wintry night,” supposedly of captivity, into a new day of freedom. The couplet relishes the new day as “slavery’s spectres shriek, and vanish from the ray!” So it appears that injustice has been eradicated with this new day of freedom, heralded by the distant bird.

The sonnet’s conceit is the extended metaphor that the bird’s song is freedom. This bird is a long way from the speaker, “as when far off.” The bird represents the success of the American Revolution. Its song is carried across the ocean to the imprisoned bird, France. The birds are not at all related, but they understand the tyranny and oppression of being caged, just as the French understood the tyranny that America experienced under the rule of King George. The caged bird is soothed, though, knowing that his counterpart in America has succeeded. He is given hope for his own plight against his cage.

The sonneteer relies heavily on morning imagery, demonstrating the dawn of a new era of freedom. The bird’s song soars “on morning wings,” “matin” means the early part of the day, bird does not bathe in “dewy light,” and the “morning struggles into day.” The sonnet takes place at the literal dawn of a new day. This bird wakes up refreshed at the news of freedom. The “rising radiance” refers to the new sun, and also to the rise of freedom, which brings cheer to all men. While the couplet maintains the sense of struggle between night and day, the darkness will “vanish from the ray,” the sonneteer gives every indication that the day will sin out.

The volta of the sonnet comes at the final couplet, which claims the victory of freedom for a group not already represented. The bird in the first quatrain is America, singing because of his own victory. The caged bird is France, singing in anticipation of his own victory. La Fayette, involved in both revolutions, claims the victory for his own land. Then the speaker makes reference to a group that did not actually gain freedom through either revolution, the slaves: “the morning struggles into day,/And slavery’s spectres shriek, and vanish from the ray!” It would be understandable to read “slavery’s spectres” as the ghost of all those who were imprisoned through political tyranny. So the statement is merely alliterative and poetically pleasing, not politically charged. However, if the idea of “slavery’s spectres” is taken literally, then the poet has claimed freedom for the slave. The American Revolution did not free the slaves – emancipation came almost 90 years later. And the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen makes no mention of the rights of slaves. So the freedoms that have been granted have not been granted to slaves in either America or France. By claiming victory over “slavery’s spectres” in the couplet, the speaker changes the tone of the sonnet from celebratory to challenging. The fight for freedom is still a struggle because not all men have been made free.