"The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr" is a satirical poem written by British-American poet Ebenezer Cooke, and first published in London in 1708.
"The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr" is a satirical poem written by British-American poet Ebenezer Cooke, and first published in London in 1708.
Written in Hudibrastic couplets, the poem is, on its surface, a scathing Juvenalian satire of America and its colonists, and a parody of the pamphlets that advertised colonization as easy and lucrative (38, 40). The persona comes to Maryland as a tobacco merchant, or "sot-weed factor". He is shocked by the brutishness of Native Americans and English settlers alike, and he is swindled by an "ambodexter quack", or corrupt lawyer. He leaves the colony in disgust.
Some critics, notably Robert D. Arner, [1] J. A. Lemay, G. A. Carey, and Sarah Ford, read the poem as a dual satire, targeting the closed-minded, embittered, failed colonist as much as it satirizes the colony. This dual satire, Ford argues, helped to promote a national identity, as "the colonists become insiders who perceive the humor in the factor's inability to adapt to life in America". [2] Robert Micklus, too, sees the poem's humor as contributing to an aspect of American culture—namely, a tendency towards self-referential satire, later further developed by Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. [3] What is significant about the poem, for Micklus, is not what Cooke says about either the colony or the English, but how Cooke goes about showing that his speaker "is a complete ass". [4]
In 1970, Edward H. Cohen stated that, "[i]n all of colonial American literature there is no problem so perplexing as that of the textual history of The Sot-weed Factor.... [I]n 1731 [Cooke] published in Annapolis a tempered revision of the same poem ... identified, on its title page, as "The Third Edition." But what, then, has become of the second edition?" [5] While Cohen points out that there are drafts of a preface for a second edition, this does not prove that such an edition was published. Joe Nickell has argued, based on similarities in the text and the published preface, that the second edition is actually the sequel, Sot-Weed Redivivus. [6]
The poem inspired John Barth's 1960 novel, The Sot-Weed Factor .
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1708.
John Simmons Barth is an American writer who is best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include The Sot-Weed Factor, a whimsical retelling of Maryland's colonial history, Giles Goat-Boy, a satirical fantasy in which a university is a microcosm of the Cold War world, and Lost in the Funhouse, a self-referential and experimental collection of short stories. He was co-recipient of the National Book Award in 1973 for his episodic novel Chimera.
Giles Goat-Boy (1966) is the fourth novel by American writer John Barth. It is a metafictional comic novel in which the universe is portrayed as a university campus in an elaborate allegory of both the hero's journey and the Cold War. Its title character is a human boy raised as a goat, who comes to believe he is the Grand Tutor, the predicted Messiah. The book was a surprise bestseller for the previously obscure Barth, and in the 1960s had a cult status. It marks Barth's leap into American postmodern fabulism.
Piscataway is an unincorporated community in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. It is one of the oldest European-colonized communities in the state. The Piscataway Creek provided sea transportation for export of tobacco. It is located near the prior Piscataway tribe village of Kittamaqundi.
The Sot-Weed Factor is a 1960 novel by the American writer John Barth. The novel marks the beginning of Barth's literary postmodernism. The Sot-Weed Factor takes its title from the poem The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr (1708) by the English-born poet Ebenezer Cooke, about whom few biographical details are known.
Ebenezer Cooke was an American poet. Probably born in London, he became a lawyer in Maryland, then a British colony, where he wrote a number of poems including one that some scholars consider the first American satire: "The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr" (1708). He was fictionalized by John Barth as the comically innocent protagonist of The Sot-Weed Factor, a novel in which a series of fantastic misadventures leads Cooke to write his poem.
Ebenezer Cooke or Cook may refer to:
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Now crowds to Founder Bocaj [Jacob Tonson] did resort
And for his Favour humbly made their Court.
The little Wits attended at his Gate
And Men of Title did his Levee wait;
For he, as Sovereign by Prerogative,
Old Members did exclude, and new receive.
He judg'd who most were for the Order fit,And Chapters held to make new Knights of Wit.
LETTERS is an epistolary novel by the American writer John Barth, published in 1979. It consists of a series of letters in which Barth and the characters of his other books interact.
The Poet Laureate of Maryland is an honorary position in Maryland. The selected poet laureate serves at the discretion of the Governor for up to a four-year term, renewable by the Governor's consent. The Poet Laureate provides public readings and special programs for the citizens of Maryland, ensuring that people in all geographic regions of the State have access to at least one reading during the term of service.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
The Floating Opera is a novel by American writer John Barth, first published in 1956 and significantly revised in 1967. Barth's first published work, the existentialist and nihilist story is a first-person account of a day when protagonist Todd Andrews contemplates suicide.
William Parks was an 18th-century printer and journalist in England and Colonial America. He was the first printer in Maryland authorized as the official printer for the colonial government. He published the first newspaper in the Southern American colonies, the Maryland Gazette. He later became authorized as the official printer for the colonial government of Virginia. Parks was also the publisher and printer of the first official collection of the authentic 1733 set of Virginia's laws, and the first colonial publisher and proprietor of The Virginia Gazette newspaper. During his lifetime Parks established four new newspapers in the colonies. He also worked with Benjamin Franklin on several projects related to printing, most notably, the establishment of a paper mill in Virginia, the first such mill south of Pennsylvania.
The literature of Maryland, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Representative authors include John Barth, H. L. Mencken, and Edgar Allan Poe.
The Sot-Weed Factor is the title of two related literary works:
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