The Sot-Weed Factor (1708 Poem)
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The Sot-Weed Factor (1708 Poem)
"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. Content 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. Reception Some critics, notably Robert D. Arner, 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 ...
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The Sot-Weed Factor; Or, A Voyage To Maryland
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a ...
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Ebenezer Cooke (poet)
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. Life Little is known about the life of Cook (sometimes spelled "Cooke", but spelled Cook in his published works). It is known that Cooke, like the persona of his poem, voyaged to Maryland as a young man. He entered the bar of Prince George's County, Maryland, and practiced law before returning to London by 1694. He later returned to Maryland after inheriting a half interest in his father's estate at Malden, Maryland.
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Hudibrastic
Hudibrastic is a type of English verse named for Samuel Butler's ''Hudibras'', published in parts from 1663 to 1678.Cox, Michael, editor, ''The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature'', Oxford University Press, 2004, For the poem, Butler invented a mock-heroic verse structure. Description Instead of pentameter, the lines were written in iambic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme is the same as in heroic verse (aa, bb, cc, dd, etc.), but Butler used frequent feminine rhyme for humor.Baldick, Christopher (1996).Hudibrastic verse in ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms''. Oxford Reference Online (subscription required), Oxford University Press. Retrieved on February 27, 2007. Example The first fourteen lines of ''Hudibras'' illustrate the verse form: :When civil dudgeon first grew high, :And men fell out they knew not why; :When hard words, jealousies, and fears, :Set folks together by the ears, :And made them fight, like mad or drunk, :For Dame Religion, as for pu ...
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Juvenalian Satire
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 shaming or exposing 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. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many artist ...
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Parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subject is an original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, etc), but a parody can also be about a real-life person (e.g. a politician), event, or movement (e.g. the French Revolution or 1960s counterculture). Literary scholar Professor Simon Dentith defines parody as "any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice". The literary theorist Linda Hutcheon said "parody ... is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text." Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, music, theater, television and film, animation, and gaming. Some parody is practiced in theater. The writer and critic John Gross observes in his ''Oxfor ...
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Tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chief commercial crop is ''N. tabacum''. The more potent variant ''N. rustica'' is also used in some countries. Dried tobacco leaves are mainly used for smoking in cigarettes and cigars, as well as pipes and shishas. They can also be consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco, and snus. Tobacco contains the highly addictive stimulant alkaloid nicotine as well as harmala alkaloids. Tobacco use is a cause or risk factor for many deadly diseases, especially those affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, as well as many cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organization named tobacco use as the world's single greatest preventable cause of death. Etymology The English word ''tobacco'' originates from the Spanish word "tabaco ...
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Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charlestown, Nevis, Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant. He pursued his education in New York before serving as an artillery officer in the American Revolutionary War. Hamilton saw action in the New York and New Jersey campaign, served for years as an aide to General George Washington, and helped secure American victory at the Siege of Yorktown. After the war, Hamilton served as a delegate from New York to the Congress of the Confederation. He resigned to practice law and founded the Bank of New York. In 1786, Hamilton led the Annapolis Convention to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States, which he helped ratify by writing 51 of the 85 installments of '' The Federali ...
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Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the first United States Postmaster General. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his studies of electricity, and for charting and naming the current still known as the Gulf Stream. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among others. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department, and the University of Pennsylvania. Isaacson, 2004, p. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefa ...
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Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal. Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is also an associate dean of the Center for Inquiry Institute. He is the author or editor of over 30 books. Among his career highlights, Nickell helped expose the James Maybrick "Jack the Ripper Diary" as a hoax. In 2002, Nickell was one of a number of experts asked by scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. to evaluate the authenticity of the manuscript of Hannah Crafts' '' The Bondwoman's Narrative'' (1853–1860), possibly the first novel by an African-American woman. At the request of document dealer and historian Seth Keller, Nickell analyzed documentation in the dispute over the authorship of "The Night Before Christmas", ultimately supporting the Clement Clarke Moore claim. Early life, education and family Joe Nickell is the son of J. Wendell an ...
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Skeptical Inquirer
''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2013 about the mission and goals of the skeptical movement, criticized the idea that people wanted to read about the paranormal, Uri Geller and crystal skulls not being relevant any longer. Paul Kurtz in 2009 seemed to share this sentiment and stated that the organization would still research some paranormal subjects as they have expertise in this area, but they would begin to investigate other areas. S.I. "has reached an historic juncture: the recognition that there is a critical need to change our direction." While editor Frazier did expand the scope of the magazine to include topics less paranormal and more that were an attack on science and critical thinking such as climate change denialism, conspiracy theories and the influence of the ...
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The Sot-Weed Factor (1960 Novel)
''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. A satirical epic set in the 1680s–90s in London and colonial Maryland, the novel tells of a fictionalized Ebenezer Cooke, who is given the title "Poet Laureate of Maryland" by Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and commissioned to write a ''Marylandiad'' to sing the praises of the colony. He undergoes adventures on his journey to and within Maryland while striving to preserve his virginity. The complicated '' Tom Jones''–like plot is interwoven with numerous digressions and stories-within-stories, and is written in a style patterned on the writing of 18th-century novelists such as Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, ...
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Southern Literary Journal
''Southern Literary Journal'' (SLJ) was established in 1968 by editors Louis D. Rubin, Jr. and C. Hugh Holman. In 2015 the journal changed focus from literary to interdisciplinary content, changed its name to ''south'', and became more closely related to UNC Press. It is published by the University of North Carolina Press The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina. It was the first university press founded in the Southern United States. It is a member of the As ... biannually. References American Southern literary magazines Biannual magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1968 Magazines published in North Carolina Mass media in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, North Carolina {{US-lit-mag-stub ...
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