Let us acknowledge things about our national anthem. "The Star-Spangled Banner" is mediocre verse set to the tune of an old drinking song that is difficult to sing. Its author, Francis Scott Key, does not have a clean record on the slavery issue (though should we apply our virtues retroactively, who would 'scape whipping?). The third verse is not happy about British efforts to enlist enslaved people in the battles of the War of 1812. Let's admit that it is problematic.
Now let me offer a modest defense. We're going to read out that third verse, because no one pays any attention to it. Patriotic Americans sing only the first verse, and there lie the grounds for a defense. When you sing only the first verse, it is not a triumphant anthem like the "Marseillaise." It ends instead with a question. Will that banner continue to fly over the land of the free and the home of the brave? In short, will we continue to live up to our founding principles? Are we up to the struggle to uphold and expand freedom? How are we going at the job?
So here in Baltimore, home of the Orioles, continue to shout that "O!" Nothing amiss in a little local pride. But don't forget that you are singing a question that is not easy or comfortable to answer.
And for the Fourth,. to see what can be done with that anthem, take a listen to Dudley Buck's "Festival Overture on the American National Air."
The words of the Marseillaise are blood-curdling. But they're in French, so Americans don’t notice.
ReplyDeleteSticking to the first verse, a syntactical mystery: What, if anything, is the object of the verb "watched"? This seems a trivial question, but different people give different answers, with arguments in support. Ungrammatical word salad is also a defensible position.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteCan you see [the flag] whose stars and stripes we watched ...?
Richard is right, it's not trivial: you could analyze it as flag, fight, or ramparts, each grammatical if you assume "that"s in the right places. See dissections at Language Log:
ReplyDelete(Nunberg)
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2880
(Liberman)
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2881
Another candidate is that "watch" is used here in an intransitive sense.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I am persuaded that "ramparts" is the object of "watch." IIRC, when I first encountered the question, I too went with its being the flag, after considering the perilous fight as a possibility. The argument I find persuasive for the ramparts is essentially pragmatic. Key is watching the ramparts of Fort McHenry from a distance. He is watching the ramparts for any sign of the flag. There are two interpretations about that. Once is that the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air provide intermittent light to make the flag visible. The other is that the mere fact that the bombardment is ongoing implies that the Americans have not surrendered, and therefore the flag is still there. Either way, it is the ramparts that are continually visible.