Let America Be America Again

The theme of patriotism—love of country—and the hope and pride that it engenders is clear from first line to last. In the very first stanza, the poem invokes the American dream, the pioneers, and the idea of freedom. In the next stanza, the speaker embraces the ideal of America as it was conceived, a “great strong land of love” (Line 7). Even after qualifications and negations appear, as the speaker explores the ways in which America does not live up to its ideal, the surging hope that the nation will shake itself free of its inadequacies and be the country that it proclaims itself to be never disappears for long. It can be heard early on in the call for “Liberty” (Line 11), with its echo of the Declaration of Independence, and for freedom, opportunity, and equality—qualities that define what America is or aspires to be. References to the dream with its “mighty daring” (Line 42) abound—about a dozen in all.

Optimism shines out in the later part of the poem, as the speaker resembles someone who has been traveling underground for a while but is now emerging again into the clear light of day, in which the land that America dreamed of becoming “must be—the land where every man is free” (Line 64).