The Anarchiad Explained
The Anarchiad (1786–87) is an American mock-epic poem that reflected Federalist concerns during the formation of the United States. The Anarchiad, or American Antiquities: A Poem on the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night was penned by four members of the Hartford Wits: David Humphreys, John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and Lemuel Hopkins. It was serialized in 12 parts in The New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine between October 26, 1786 and September 13, 1787.[1]
The Anarchiad drew inspiration from Alexander Pope's satiric epics like The Dunciad and James MacPherson's forged Ossian cycle of epic poems, which inspired the pseudo-classical setting as a vehicle for satire. The poem purported to be fragments of an ancient heroic poem unearthed in ruined fortifications to the west. As a literary counterpart to The Federalist Papers, the poem criticized the dysfunctional Articles of Confederation, demanded a stronger central government, and rebuked the Anti-Federalists for permitting "Anarch" (Chaos) to reign over the fledgling republic. Connecticut's Anti-Federalists came in for particular opprobrium. The authors repeatedly nodded to Shays' Rebellion as a harbinger of the Republic's dissolution.[2]
Sources
Books
- Book: Bergland, Renée L. . The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects . University Press of New England . 2000 . 978-0874519440 . en.
- Book: Cleves, Rachel Hope . The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery . Cambridge University Press . 2009 . 978-1107403987.
- Book: Engell, James . A Companion to Satire . Blackwell Publishing . 2007 . 978-1-4051-1955-9 . Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture . 233–256 . en . Satiric Spirits of the Later Eighteenth Century: Johnson to Crabbe . 10.1002/9780470996959.ch14.
- Book: Engell, James . The Committed Word: Literature and Public Values . 2010 . Penn State Press . 978-0-271-03891-9 . en.
- Book: Gardner, Jared . Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787–1845 . Johns Hopkins University Press . 2000 . 0-8018-6538-7 . en.
- Book: Giles, Paul . Transatlantic Insurrections: British Culture and the Formation of American Literature, 1730–1860 . University of Pennsylvania Press . 2001 . 0-8122-3603-3 . en.
- Book: Goldwyn, Adam J. . Brill's Companion to Classics in the Early Americas . Brill . 2021 . 978-90-04-46857-3 . Tomes . Maya Feile . 271–294 . en . A New England Underworld: The Necropolitics and Necropoetics of Katabasis in the Anarchiad (1786–87) and Mock Epics of the Early U. S. Republic . 10.1163/9789004468658_011 . Goldwyn . Adam J. . Duquès . Matthew.
- Book: Hart, James D. . The Oxford Companion to American Literature . Leininger . Phillip W. . Oxford University Press . 1995 . 978-0-19-506548-0 . 6th . en.
- Book: Lohman, Laura . Hail Columbia! American Music and Politics in the Early Nation . Oxford University Press . 2020 . 978-0-19-093061-5 . en.
- Book: McWilliams, John . The American Epic: Transforming a Genre, 1770–1860 . Cambridge University Press . 1989 . 978-0521107020 . Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture . 36.
- Book: Nelson, Dana D. . Civic Continuities in an Age of Revolutionary Change, c. 1750–1850: Europe and the Americas . Palgrave Macmillan . Pollmann . Judith . Palgrave Studies in Political History . 249–270 . en . 'The Free Action of the Collective Power of Individuals': Vernacular Democracy and the Sovereign People . 10.1007/978-3-031-09504-7_11 . te Velde . Henk . free.
- Book: Wells, Colin . The Oxford Handbook of Early American Literature . 2008 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-518727-4 . 505–526 . en. Revolutionary Verse. Hayes. Kevin J..
- Book: Wells, Colin . The Devil and Doctor Dwight: Satire and Theology in the Early American Republic . Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press . 2002 . 0-8078-5383-6 . en.
- Book: White, Ed . Class and the Making of American Literature: Created Unequal . Routledge . 2014 . 978-0-415-82206-0 . Lawson . Andrew . The Shays Rebellion in Literary History.
Periodicals
- Bloomfield . Max . Winter 1988 . Constitutional Values and the Literature of the Early Republic . Journal of American Culture . 11 . 4 . 53–58 . 10.1111/j.1542-734X.1988.1104_53.x.
- Dowling . William C. . 1990 . Joel Barlow and The Anarchiad . Early American Literature . 25 . 1 . 18–33 . 25056793.
- Engels . Jeremy . Fall 2006 . Disciplining Jefferson: The Man within the Breast and the Rhetorical Norms of Producing Order . Rhetoric & Public Affairs . 9 . 3 . 411–435 . 10.1353/rap.2006.0069.
- Goodheart . Lawrence B. . Hinks . Peter P. . 2013 . 'See the Jails Open and the Thieves Arise': Joseph Mountain's Revolutionary Atlantic and Consolidating Early National Connecticut . Atlantic Studies: Global Currents . 10 . 4 . 497–527 . 10.1080/14788810.2013.832013.
- Goodin . Brett . January 2021 . Two Barbary Captives: Allegiance Through Self-Interest and International Networks, 1785–1796 . Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography . 145 . 1 . 1–32 . 10.1353/pmh.2021.0000.
- Grasso . Christopher . 1995 . Print, Poetry, and Politics: John Trumbull and the Transformation of Public Discourse in Revolutionary America . Early American Literature . 30 . 1 . 5–31 . 25056998.
- Lee . Judith Yaross . 1988 . Republican Rhymes: Constitutional Controversy and the Democratization of the Verse Satire, 1786–1799 . Studies in American Humor . New Series 2 . 6 . 30–39 . 0095-280X . 42573682.
- Lee . Judith Yaross . 2020 . American Humor and Matters of Empire: A Proposal and Invitation . Studies in American Humor . 6 . 1 . 8–43 . 10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0008 . 10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0008.
- Martinko . Whitney A. . 'So Majestic a Monument of Antiquity': Landscape, Knowledge, and Authority in the Early National West . Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum . 16 . 1 . 29–61 . 10.1353/bdl.0.0017.
- McDonald . Will . Spring 2009 . Still Personal: Joel Barlow and the Publication of Poetry in the 1780s . Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association . 42 . 1 . 89–104 . 07425562 . 25674358.
- Osborne . Jeff . Fall–Winter 2008 . Constituting American Masculinity . American Studies . 39 . 3–4 . 111–132 . 40930399.
- Post . Constance J. . 1988 . Revolutionary Dialogics in American Mock-Epic Poetry: Double-Voicing in M'Fingal, The Anarchiad, and The Hasty-Pudding . Studies in American Humor . New Series 2 . 6 . 0095-280X . 42573683.
- Sayre . Gordon M. . 1998 . The Mound Builders and the Imagination of American Antiquity in Jefferson, Bartram, and Chateaubriand . Early American Literature . 33 . 3 . 225–249 . 25057127.
- Van Dover . J. K. . 1989 . The Design of Anarchy: "The Anarchiad", 1786-1787 . Early American Literature . 24 . 3 . 237–247 . 25056781 . 0012-8163.
Others
External links
Notes and References
- .
- .