The Anarchiad
{{short description|American satiric poem}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Infobox poem
| name = The Anarchiad
| author = David Humphreys, John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, Lemuel Hopkins
| publication_date = 1786–87
| image = The Anarchiad book cover 1861.tif
| caption = Cover of 1861 reprint
| country = United States
| first = New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine
| language = English
| subject = Politics
| genre = Mock-epic
}}
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.{{Harvtxt|Van Dover|1989|pp=237–247}}; {{Harvtxt|Engell|2010}}.{{Page needed|date=March 2024}}
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.{{Harvtxt|Wells|2008|pp=514–515}}.
References
{{reflist}}
Sources
= Books =
- {{Cite book |last=Bergland |first=Renée L. |title=The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects |publisher=University Press of New England |year=2000 |isbn=978-0874519440 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Cleves |first=Rachel Hope |title=The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-1107403987}}
- {{Cite book |last=Engell |first=James |title=A Companion to Satire |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-4051-1955-9 |series=Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture |pages=233–256 |language=en |chapter=Satiric Spirits of the Later Eighteenth Century: Johnson to Crabbe |doi=10.1002/9780470996959.ch14}}
- {{Cite book |last=Engell |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nk_pMKwfYSUC |title=The Committed Word: Literature and Public Values |date=2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-03891-9 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Gardner |first=Jared |title=Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787–1845 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-8018-6538-7 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Giles |first=Paul |title=Transatlantic Insurrections: British Culture and the Formation of American Literature, 1730–1860 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8122-3603-3 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Goldwyn |first=Adam J. |title=Brill's Companion to Classics in the Early Americas |publisher=Brill |year=2021 |isbn=978-90-04-46857-3 |editor-last=Tomes |editor-first=Maya Feile |pages=271–294 |language=en |chapter=A New England Underworld: The Necropolitics and Necropoetics of Katabasis in the Anarchiad (1786–87) and Mock Epics of the Early U. S. Republic |doi=10.1163/9789004468658_011 |editor-last2=Goldwyn |editor-first2=Adam J. |editor-last3=Duquès |editor-first3=Matthew}}
- {{Cite book |last=Hart |first=James D. |title=The Oxford Companion to American Literature |last2=Leininger |first2=Phillip W. |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-19-506548-0 |edition=6th |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Lohman |first=Laura |title=Hail Columbia! American Music and Politics in the Early Nation |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-093061-5 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=McWilliams |first=John |title=The American Epic: Transforming a Genre, 1770–1860 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0521107020 |series=Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture |volume=36}}
- {{Cite book |last=Nelson |first=Dana D. |title=Civic Continuities in an Age of Revolutionary Change, c. 1750–1850: Europe and the Americas |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |editor-last=Pollmann |editor-first=Judith |series=Palgrave Studies in Political History |pages=249–270 |language=en |chapter='The Free Action of the Collective Power of Individuals': Vernacular Democracy and the Sovereign People |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-09504-7_11 |editor-last2=te Velde |editor-first2=Henk |doi-access=free}}
- {{Cite book |last=Wells |first=Colin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gH9Csi8cVWIC |title=The Oxford Handbook of Early American Literature |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-518727-4 |pages=505–526 |language=en|chapter=Revolutionary Verse|editor-last=Hayes|editor-first=Kevin J.}}
- {{Cite book |last=Wells |first=Colin |title=The Devil and Doctor Dwight: Satire and Theology in the Early American Republic |publisher=Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-8078-5383-6 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=White |first=Ed |title=Class and the Making of American Literature: Created Unequal |publisher=Routledge |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-415-82206-0 |editor-last=Lawson |editor-first=Andrew |chapter=The Shays Rebellion in Literary History}}
= Periodicals =
- {{Cite journal |last=Bloomfield |first=Max |date=Winter 1988 |title=Constitutional Values and the Literature of the Early Republic |journal=Journal of American Culture |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=53–58 |doi=10.1111/j.1542-734X.1988.1104_53.x}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Dowling |first=William C. |date=1990 |title=Joel Barlow and The Anarchiad |journal=Early American Literature |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=18–33 |jstor=25056793}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Engels |first=Jeremy |date=Fall 2006 |title=Disciplining Jefferson: The Man within the Breast and the Rhetorical Norms of Producing Order |journal=Rhetoric & Public Affairs |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=411–435 |doi=10.1353/rap.2006.0069}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Goodheart |first=Lawrence B. |last2=Hinks |first2=Peter P. |date=2013 |title='See the Jails Open and the Thieves Arise': Joseph Mountain's Revolutionary Atlantic and Consolidating Early National Connecticut |journal=Atlantic Studies: Global Currents |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=497–527 |doi=10.1080/14788810.2013.832013}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Goodin |first=Brett |date=January 2021 |title=Two Barbary Captives: Allegiance Through Self-Interest and International Networks, 1785–1796 |journal=Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography |volume=145 |issue=1 |pages=1–32 |doi=10.1353/pmh.2021.0000}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Grasso |first=Christopher |date=1995 |title=Print, Poetry, and Politics: John Trumbull and the Transformation of Public Discourse in Revolutionary America |journal=Early American Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=5–31 |jstor=25056998}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Lee |first=Judith Yaross |date=1988 |title=Republican Rhymes: Constitutional Controversy and the Democratization of the Verse Satire, 1786–1799 |journal=Studies in American Humor |series=New Series 2 |volume=6 |pages=30–39 |issn=0095-280X |jstor=42573682}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Lee |first=Judith Yaross |date=2020 |title=American Humor and Matters of Empire: A Proposal and Invitation |journal=Studies in American Humor |series= |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=8–43 |doi=10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0008 |issn= |jstor=10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0008}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Martinko |first=Whitney A. |title='So Majestic a Monument of Antiquity': Landscape, Knowledge, and Authority in the Early National West |journal=Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=29–61 |doi=10.1353/bdl.0.0017}}
- {{Cite journal |last=McDonald |first=Will |date=Spring 2009 |title=Still Personal: Joel Barlow and the Publication of Poetry in the 1780s |journal=Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=89–104 |issn=07425562 |jstor=25674358}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Osborne |first=Jeff |date=Fall–Winter 2008 |title=Constituting American Masculinity |journal=American Studies |volume=39 |issue=3–4 |pages=111–132 |jstor=40930399}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Post |first=Constance J. |date=1988 |title=Revolutionary Dialogics in American Mock-Epic Poetry: Double-Voicing in M'Fingal, The Anarchiad, and The Hasty-Pudding |journal=Studies in American Humor |series=New Series 2 |volume=6 |issn=0095-280X |jstor=42573683}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Sayre |first=Gordon M. |date=1998 |title=The Mound Builders and the Imagination of American Antiquity in Jefferson, Bartram, and Chateaubriand |journal=Early American Literature |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=225–249 |jstor=25057127}}
- {{Cite journal |last=Van Dover |first=J. K. |date=1989 |title=The Design of Anarchy: "The Anarchiad", 1786-1787 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25056781 |journal=Early American Literature |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=237–247 |jstor=25056781 |issn=0012-8163}}
= Others =
- {{Cite web |last=Cutterham |first=Tom |date=July 24, 2017 |title=Anarchy and the American Revolution |url=https://ageofrevolutions.com/2017/07/24/anarchy-and-the-american-revolution/ |website=Age of Revolutions}}
External links
- [http://name.umdl.umich.edu/BAD5699.0001.001 Full text of poem]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anarchiad}}
Category:American satirical poems
Category:American political satire