Bridgewater Review

Volume 17 | Issue 1 Article 6

Jun-1998

The American Struggle for Identity in 18th CenturyNewspaper VerseAnn BrunjesBridgewater State College, abrunjes@bridgew.edu

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

Recommended CitationBrunjes, Ann (1998). The American Struggle for Identity in 18th Century Newspaper Verse. Bridgewater Review, 17(1), 7-10.Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol17/iss1/6

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THE AMERICANSTRUGGLE FOR

IDENTI1YINEIGHTEENTH

CENTURYNEWSPAPER

VERSEAnn Brunjes

MOSt scholars of American litera­ture can offer little more than ablank look when asked to name

a famous or important figure in Ameri­can Literature from the years surround­ing the American Revolution (approxi­mately 1760 to 1820). If pressed, thescholar might call up Phillis Wheatley(1753?-84), the Mrican slave-turned-poetwho amazed her mistress and Boston in­telligentsia with her religious and patri­otic verse. Pushed harder still, the samescholar might recall Phillip Freneau, someof whose poems are said to prefigure thenature imagery of the transcendentalistand romantic writers of the nineteenthcentury. These two names aside, the yearsfollowing the American Revolution untilEmerson burst onto the literary scene in1836 with his first book Nature have tra­ditionally been seen as dark ones in Ameri­can literary history.

Early in my graduate school career Icertainly saw those years in the same light.In a course in early American Literature,which like most focused on the Puritans(their poetry, journals, and sermons), Iundertook an assignment to conductoriginal research in any of the years be­tween the Bay Psalm Book (1640) andWashington Irving's Sketch-Book (1819).Imagining myself as some kind of latter­day Thomas Johnson, the fortunate

fFor :theC H n.d'N':l~ iJ'~~ ,4"~M~• .r::~l'N"~~ R., ':"'J"'" ,::, /

0'1',. HAY:E1?ng' pern{~,~~til"' "!m;:n."paper~ ,'with ,plea!ing!f;jt1sfa~b}l:;,

:'~id, asyouhave been pleafed't'Q,give ~s

: a curious"-aCCOtmt 'of the manners I amI! ,€l;!lQms"of 1the-lnhalritantS(ofWa/~~j as

'- : ~jha curious 'int-rodlJttionfto~ ¢..e.'¥hip;;"'",p,r;;;, ofivices, ',arid.'manyroth:a';fUrl(Jr.)~~,"pieces; "1: alfo' -will;' i,n 'my'.turn gi~E:~

'" YPu fome'a~?unr: ohnyf!:lfW IQle)~G~~';'~:,, toms-;.-,aoo,-WJ:1\1.e.s--'Of, \'T!3xJde.n!!l:~ :i~~,"· neighbotirs. ,; , ; " : " ,.; 'J • ." ",;;' ;,::~[t

, Tlive retitecl"froin the.'(b'nttle;'of,fhe:: wor,ld, i!la little;-c;o,ttag~t;it+lllwd'~lthi:'[brow of a hil1,lmd,he<u!'but'Jlt~le'1>f ~e'.'r~igning-v~<;es.l:oft~, 'age:.,:' N.JI" ,(fa;} I,

wiih toCotl(:em myfelf witlrthl;flliiiilgs.;and frailriesrnf: jlllY· 'feliow·et:.e:!l'\1I'(;S;· b~t .wou-tu it:itliet"oV:et1~(jlttheir:tfiibl~s/:owu Vic,,, onlY. ~th.ei~real virt}f&.:-. .".

My little neighbourhood .' fr~q.\~i!ntly..:,'a1fosiat~; aad:alternilteIY- relate' tIle vrio-- -,•t\ie,~' pf ili~i£-·ancefiot$i. ;<',hut they' Wi/h'~ Ito~·itorell1e,inbei;~'mUChk'fs to·tmf6Id.:

, :the;J~i~gslofan9~~ity•.:;;~~~n,s'us;:;"t~t hlS ,.ptogemtoi',Swe'i1f..,ti\.~·'.\l-!Jd'~lQwly,: ~ftaIir:rat'Rublic\vorlhip,,~e.' ,'VQ,i!i,ofM$:ep~ofi;. ,:ilid of.every1drid,tlf, atfcAat:ion'lIriii ihC:w'••.Another ifjf\ll'iU~!

"us;: ·,tha~'llb tan~~oI'Sw~re';hlln1li~~i;· gef~~~\l~,:acwated, by.iF.~pUre'tl:'~"·tive~.ofjuitice:~nd equity~ "~t'~':

'their cOlla.af.~pr.lCtic.e ..to-lli:n:-'e)h~ good.thmgs whlchBeaveii had,.ooHoWeO- orf'

'them, with;,the:.poor, w~ett.:lkdi.and'. ,mifc~able."\A thir<l,a<;'quair,l~ :Us', ., that­'l~iS;btli~r;1lldg[andfath~:"wet~ :~aiti;

,J1ghtlllg for thelt coul!try ~;-.caufe :' thatill,thelllwere coinpined the:mQ1\e -tlobie

'qllolities 'of the hero;"';ith th"..reahit!~::. tcil~ \Jf af,ricnd, clilmp;i,nioD; .m~ ~itiieri. '

'Thus tloVie oars our leifUrI/h.<mis'In r,emvlty \lI¥l,IIUnn, anQIGulg"S' outllnityano pc:tce'p~ty:ade oui- It,t~, arid•

. " ErtW may !hOot her.\lcnom',d darts;,";'.1.ili(e ~Yl'aifeoher :hydra l).eild ; it's.~) K(j vain,qliH~~iUwe1~('~ ror virtUe.:,; lint gr~ateft.goo.d"an&cndq\'ourtojjill\lC\'C\t' th~ appeutance of vi<;e"ast1J.e(jnl~ denro),~tt of aratlona1 creatUre•.

.', '~, ..' i' '.•. ", . ".',. Z, $" N Q:.i '", .~ 'I I

Berkshire Chronicle - July 24, 1788

scholar who lit upon the poems ofEdwardTaylor (1644-1729) stashed in a mustycomer of the Yale library, I settled myselfinto the local history section of my home­town library and began scanning the col­lection. While no new Taylors leapt out atme, I found myself absorbed in microfilmcopies of late eighteenth century issuesof Pittsfield and Berkshire County (MA)newspapers.

7

In each issue I found a column de­voted to poetry, the great majority of itattributed to local writers with elaboratepen-names like The Berkshire Chronicle's"Philo Independantic," my personal favor­ite. None of it was terribly good; even themore polished pieces were pale imitationsof British neo-classical verse, and the un­polished were nearly incomprehensible,with allusions to local characters andevents so obscure that only the mostdogged contemporary reader could un­earth their meaning. But these poemswere clearly popular, and I could oftentrace the evolution in public opinion sur­rounding an event (like a proposed countylottery) more clearly through the Berk­shire Chronicle's poetry than through itsprose reportage. Readers felt stronglyabout these poems, arguing over theirquality and content in verse and in lettersto the editor. While my own Edward Tay­lor continued to elude me, I had foundsomething that engendered passion inearly Americans. Iwas particularly struckby the role poetry played in the lives ofthose long-ago Pittsfielders. Readerstransformed any issue of note in the localscene into verse, which was subsequentlycommented upon by scores of readers.These poems forced me to reconsiderthose "dark" years, for there was a tremen­dous output of poetry and prose in localnewspapers and magazines, much of itdefining itself as "literary," and much of itquite unlike current conceptions ofliterature.

Despite its importance to BerkshireChronicle subscribers of the late 1780s,none of this literature is read in collegeclassrooms today. There is no section ofThe Norton Anthology devoted to eigh­teenth century periodical literature, andfew scholars recognize this material as lit­erary. There is a fairly straightforward rea­son for this neglect. While the poetry ofthe colonial period--most notably that ofAnne Bradstreet (c. 1612-72) and Taylor­-is often difficult for the lay reader, suf­fused as it is by the religious piety of thePuritans, contemporary readers find inTaylor and Bradstreet an approach to po­etry not terribly unlike our own. BothBradstreet's and Taylor's poems expressprivate pains, terrors, and fears. Thoughthose concerns are largely focused on the

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poets' relationships to God, their essen­tial nature--an inner struggle made pub­lic in rhythmic, sometimes rhymed lan­guage--is not significantly different fromthe poems one might encounter in themost recent issue of The New Yorker.

In the years surrounding the Revo­lution, however, those Americans with apoetic turn of mind wrote distinctly po­litical, public, didactic verse, poems whichwere designed to persuade one's fellowcitizens to vote for a particular candidateor to embrace the figure of General GeorgeWashington as a hero of mythic propor­tions. This, to some modern readers, maybe poetry in that it has meter (or moreaccurately aspires to meter), but today'sreaders have a very difficult time embrac­ing these works as "literary" precisely be­cause they do not transcend their owntimes--or perhaps more to the point, be­cause they do not care to transcend theirown times. But to Americans in 1785, apoem about the controversy surroundingthe local Shaker community was as liter­ary as Sylvia Plath's poetry is today. Inthe forty-odd years preceding WashingtonIrving's Sketch-Book, The Federalist wasthe talk of the taverns; Parson Weems' bi­ography of George Washington was a best­seller; and the rapidly proliferating re­gional newspapers were jammed full ofpoems by local writers. All were consid­ered literature; all were considered liter­ary. Our current, still-fluctuating notionssurrounding art and literature would havebeen quite foreign to eighteenth-centurywriters who sawall these texts as impor­tant contributions to the nation's fledg­ling literary canon.

Though the printing-press came toNew England with the Puritans, twenti­eth-century print culture and its venera­tion of the bound volume was in its earli­est stages in the late 1700s. Most infor­mation in post-Revolutionary Americawas still conveyed orally, but newspaperswere one component in the growing in­fluence of print culture in the former colo­nies. Popular and influential throughoutNew England especially, newspapersgained widespread acceptance during theRevolution, when they provided readerswith one of the few sources of reliable in­formation. Furthermore, without the con-

straint of copyright laws, it was fairly easyfor printers (who were also frequently theeditors, owners, and primary contributors)to fill three printed sheets by borrowingfreely from other American, British or Eu­ropean newspapers. In the poems and es­says published in Pittsfield's BerkshireChronicle for the year 1788, we find, (in

P8:RNASSIAN PACKEl'.

IrYJl:f :11~:1'I'£",:HA'Vi:" G"znn.'Mr. ,p R.t N'T 'E Il,

:r!f~. ·,tfiflrif~,;wEich the "inba"italll' -.oJGuin~:rxplrhnc< ~t,tbl loP oftbiirChildren, which, aI" Jlolm 1"0'" tlmn

.hy t'l J,r.fiml,imploycJ i" that.,far.ba.rO((f trajJ!c, if,p(rhq;f.tJ10r( thorougbly

,jell'~ha;,:dif~";kd. •Bu~ aj- if if alui;·l!P, ,t. """,h,ch :"';ry pcrfon hal not·Il!ttndnl.... tbt fofl.~oi"f! RJttl11..tJ/' to. rt-

$;;"/';1 Ih~ ~"g;'iJh,o/'a m'lh,,', whOJ'fiJI "kt! ((ought!"!- ".u~,.(. tttkr:t:fr{}1Yi 'hrr·.bY·i4 '!Jip'".J ,ere",).: ,:(JD1Ig~ltg ,19 a 'crmnlry''"J,!>ruth, GOD,uCjuthee and M,erey"il ","",tf .~d ,voljhippd.' ,

I-lED:' !~~~:~lp! thou God ofChift.

Sal'e, Moth" from defpair- , ,Cruel W hire Men'i).al my C.hildren­

.f..iou \)f Chrillians ! JtcJr my pr:lYel:.

Fro,m my arms'by for:~c thtr're rended;'· Sailors lIr:Jg rheul lo the It-J.- I

-7}'~mder /hip at ;llJ~hor ridilltr,· S,vifr .wilr'CJ,rry rhem iw~y.

'TIl;re my fon lies,pale and bleeding;· l' :.lIt wIth thowrs hiS hallds-aTe bound'

:Se~ the ~)'r.mts b~\v they fcolJrge him) ,:S.e:e,hl~ fitles.Ol rtek~n.g w"OUtlu.

'See, his little fiCler by hiln" ', ~2..i:l~king. tremhlinp;"hq~t.'/ fh7 fit's!

':Drop. 0.£ blooQ her, face, beFprjnkle,'H.rs of~ril?iuiOllillher eyes,.

Now,tlley tear her'brnrher fro~ he.-, 'TJO\vrl. below .'th·e deck he's throw'ri ;

,Stiff with bearing-rhro' fear filent, ,. 0,... , a [ingle dearh.like groan.

'1r~"r tu: littJeJ?at,ghrer beiging, ~C:ke me, \'~I bfrc !\olrn.;fot your'own)

~Sp;lrel 011.1 fp.=1r-~ .my ,darliri.g 'bfQtllCl"jHe's my nipther's only Jon.

'\Sce·l;pori.ih~ h;~re,Jt;t·s·~;t~in·g; "Down, fhe f.m !ipoli rne"lanJ.-. .'

:Now £he .~e:irs...hei" flefil wit)a .madnefs;, Now file prays' wiih lifted hand.:

I ~m you~;Y;:md'tlrtrn;" ;!lid h,rJy .-, He's a {~k ~nu weekly &0)'- 'Take me,. whip C1e,ch:.lin',ne:, fiar'~'e Jl'l.C

All my 'lifo .I'll toil with jo)'. "

C!ll'iIl:;all;; ~vlio's t, 0 G~d yoo worJi;ip!ls he cr,uel,.fierre-or gooJ! '

Does ~.e take delight in mercy,.- Or in flJeding hum,n bloou 1

Ah ! my poor diIl:i-,aea I~otli~r !Hrar her fcrelm UpOIl rhe lhore 1_"

Dowli the: GV01&e C:1.prain !truck herLifelcl's a-n rhe vtJlcl's floor { ,

UI' !,i, fail;he IJuickly 'hoi.!le'd,,1 0 ~hc OCt';l-ll benr his \\'3Y­

UCJuloog pJung'd the raving mother.F"ro:n':.:. high rock in the Ie..... '

=~--.....;..-- ----,

8

regions miles from the learned coastal cit­ies and older settled villages), the work ofcreating an American literature in fullswing.

The Berkshire Chronicle is typical inform and content of newspapers publishedin New England before the turn of the cen­tury. It is an accessible and entertainingpaper, printing local gossip alongside na­tional and international news. Its decid­edly local flavor emerges from an "Amuse­ment" column on science questions, a"Moral Observer" column, poetry ("TheParnassian Packet"), agriculture tips, so­cial news, and, of course, advertisements.Most of the contributors use pen names;Alfred is the regular moral observer, as wellas the '1\rnusement" column editor, whileJustus, Whipper, and Zeno provide otherless regular columns on morality and is­sues of popular interest. The Chronicle'smotto, "Free as the savage roams his na­tive wood n or finny nations cleave thebriny flood," is also typical in its oddness(I remain perplexed by the image of theUnited States as a "finny nation") and toneof grandiose self-importance. These pa­pers took themselves quite seriously as themost influential and widely read venuesfor information, politics, and commerce,and as outlets for local literary and artis­tic productions.

While better-known early Americanwriters (like Joel Barlow or TimothyDwight) wrote epic and pastoral poemsabout American history and religion--sub­jects which conformed to prevailing liter­ary standards--in the newspapers andmagazines the reader finds a kind of free­for-all in the poetic contents. WhileBarlow's and Dwight's writings were pub­lished occasionally in the periodicals' po­etry sections and so were familiar to thegeneral reader, a great hash of writing ap­pears in these publications as well--writ­ten by both anonymous writers and fa­mous Englishmen. Readers never knew,in short, what they would find when theyopened a magazine or a newspaper; theremight be English Romantic poetry(Wordsworth appears in The BerkshireChronicle with surprising regularity) or arough satire on a local controversy, or amoralistic epigram, or a religious poem ...all in the same forum, all under the head-

_______________----J '--- _

ing "poetry." There is a peculiar hopeful­ness to these newspapers--an optimisticexpectation on the part of the editors thatif they included everything permittedwithin a certain circumference of stan­dards and tastes, with an emphasis onwriting by Americans, something goodwas bound to show up.

Certainly religious poetry enjoyed tre­mendous popularity in these early news­papers, and the Chronicle carried a healthyshare of poems expressing a variety of re­ligious concerns. "The Contrast" (July1789), a 120 line verse ramble in rhymedcouplets attributed to the poet "Crispin,"is typical in tone, subject, and style to mostof the specifically religious poetry foundin these early newspapers. "The Contrast"expresses a great deal of anger; the authorclearly has an ax to grind, though his (orvery possibly her) obscure references andtendency to contradiction make it diffi­cult to discern precisely what slhe is up­set about. Crispin opens with a mockinginvocation to Minerva and the muses:

GODDESS Minerva lend you aid,While I in mysteries deep do wade;AndMuses nine, impart your skill,And guide for once my wavering quill,To sound aloud my leaden trumpet,And wade in shallows to the armpit.

Invoking Minerva, goddess of wisdom,suggests the poet's desire to distinguishhis or her rationality from the religiousfanaticism that will shortly be exposed.Crispin occasionally shows a flash of in­tended humor, as here when mocking his/her own solemn intonations with the anti­climactic, irreverent images of a leadentrumpet and armpits.

Before undertaking the main theme,a general parody of several Protestantsects, the poem offers 45 lines on the in­vasion of spurious religions and itinerantpreachers from "Sister States." The propa­gators of these religions are described inthe harshest terms as "Homer's frogs en­gaging mice, / or numerous swarms ofbodylice"; as "herd of swine in field ofcorn," "mountabanks" (sic), and "jockeystrading off blind horses." The particularobjects of Crispin's scorn are the Univer­salists and Shakers, though Calvinists and

atheists also endure attacks. ThoughPittsfield had no Unitarian Church until1890, the Shakers were founding a newcommunity in nearby Hancock, andCrispin's anxieties may have been sparkedby their apparent success.

The author sees him/herself as thegreat leveler; endorsing no creed, Crispincondemns as ridiculous the believer andatheist, all equally foolish in believingthemselves saved. In closing slhe writes:

Thus all whirl round with equal scorn,As Planets on their axis tum.And so keep up endless contentionYet halftheir craft I may not mention.

Stylistically undistinguished,Crispin's poem remains interesting to usfor a number of reasons. Clearly, the citi­zens of Pittsfield felt free to entertain avariety of religious opinions and publishtheir verses for the community's consid­eration. And the fact that Crispin choosesto express her or himself in verse, ratherthan in prose, holds its own fascination.Crispin, like many late-eighteenth centurywriters, believes that weighty subjectsmerit the weightiness of verse. Our con­temporary understanding of poetry (how­ever false) as an outlet for heavy emotionor navel-gazing is a stunning reversal ofearlier Americans' standards and expecta­tions.

Politics and politicians were also con­sidered fit subjects for poetry, though read­ers often lamented the harsh tone takenby the poems. Magazine readers in par­ticular expressed the frequent hope thatthey might be spared the crudeness andviciousness of local political debate. Onewriter to the March 11, 1809 issue of theRichmond, Virginia Visitor made clear hisdisdain of ad hominem political writing:Every well disposed man who reads thenewspapers, cannot but regret what wecall the liberty ofthe Press, when he ob­serves how invariably it happens, thatpolitical controversies terminate in per­sonal abuse.. .

This reader may have had in mind ex­actly the sort ofwriting that caused a con­siderable stir among the readers of the July1788 Chronicle. In addition to igniting aseries of personal attacks, one badly writ-

9.

ten poem, signed by "PhiloIndependantic" and entitled "On the Cel­ebration of the 4th of July, being a day ofDEPENDANCE" (July 31 1788), sparkeda lively debate among the Chronicle'sreadership concerning literary standardsand the freedom of the press with respectto literature. Certainly the poem is rough:it has no consistent meter; an apologistmight call its rhymes "creative;" and to acontemporary reader it is practically non­sensical, concerned as it is with thedrunken antics of a group of historicallyinsignificant Revolutionary War veteranson the Fourth of July. Laced with localpolitical satire, "The Celebration" is simi­lar in content to (though perhaps ratherrougher in execution than) most politicalpoetry published in the Chronicle.

A few stanzas from the poem, re­printed below, should provide the readerwith the flavor of Philo Independantic'sverse style:

Palmer rose and told the concourse,In his opinion 'twas no wrong courseTo give them an oration,On the present antifederal occasion.

When Palmer had done his expressionsso strong,To Strong's tavern repairedEach deacon ami saint, old and youngsinner,And at Strong's request, paid six shillingsfor dinner.

Dinner seated over allCannons roar to teach their fall.Horse and men Danforth calls forth,To shew their valour and some mirth;

Not with a view to fight or kill,Nor shew their bravery or their skill

Independence all pass'd free,He got home who steady be.

Philo Independantic's politics, as ex­pressed in the poem, seem to have beenon the anti-federalist side (i.e., opposed tothe ratification of the new Federal Consti­tution), since he refers to the Fourth as aday of "Dependance"--in other words,Philo may have seen the Constitution's

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ratification as a betrayal of the county'sprevailing antifederalist beliefs and a be­trayal of the spirit of the Revolution com­memorated on the Fourth. Philo rein­forces the impression that this is a gath­ering of anti-federalists by naming thecelebration "the present anti-federal oc­casion." The characters named in theselines and elsewhere in the poem-­Danforth, Strong, and Palmer, for ex­ample--were all Revolutionary war veter­ans and in some cases bona fide heroes.Whether Philo is lampooning the old vet­erans for their antics and beliefs or cel­ebrating their politics and exuberance isunclear, but certainly the poem reflects thecounty's current political climate and is­sues of national importance.

One week after publishing "The Cel­ebration," the printer of the Chronicle re­ceived an unprecedented outpouring ofletters and columns from regular con­tributors and new ones--none of them,significantly, commenting on the contentof the poem but rather on its form. Onerespondent in the August 7 issue, callinghimself "Criticus" and overwhelmed byaesthetic pique, entitled his response to"Celebration" "Remarks on Scribbling."Following prefatory remarks on the nega­tive aspects of freedom of the press,"Criticus" directly addresses the offend­ing Philo Independantic, and writes: Butthat any man, however destitute oflearn­ing, or even ofcommon abilities, shouldbe prevailedupon to expose to public viewsuch an heterogenious, metamorphosed,borrowed, unconnected piece ofcompo­sition, as that which appeared in the lastweek's paper, under the signature ofPhiloIndependantic; or otherwise called Pe­dantic Ignoramus, is a phenomena.Surely, if the man has any sense ofpro­priety; if he can distinguish prose frompoetry -- two feet from six; or if he canperceive any difference in the rhyme of"so strong" and "repaired;" he certainlynever would have exposed such imbecil­ity. -- But as the candor of the public isrequisite in all public performances, it ishoped and expected that Philo may par­take ofthat benefit, upon the sole condi­tion that he never more will attempt towield the pen. (Chronicle, August 7,1988).

In response to Criticus's commen­tary, a regular columnist, "Pedro," ques­tions Criticus's literary authority: Now,Mr. Printer, I wish to be informed by whatmeans Criticus & Co. became clothed withauthority to kill and make alive at theirnod?--If they have not been vested withsuch powers, they must have as muchimpudence to assume it, as Philo had inexposing his performance to the publiceye. .. I should therefore advise Mr.Cn"ticus & Co. to dissolve their copartner­ship as dictators; and pursue some busi­ness within the compass oftheir author­ity. (Chronicle, August 14, 1788)Pedro seems less disturbed by the pros­pect of bad literary publications than bythe thought that someone such as theanonymous Criticus might believe him­self capable of censoring the press beforethe public had had a chance to make uptheir own minds about the worthiness ofthe poem in question. Whipper, anotherregular columnist, seconds that beliefwhen he writes of Criticus &Co.: "I knowno right they have, except by assumption,to recondemn works which the betterjudgment of the PUBLIC had previouslybut partially condemned." If the Printeris to hand over inspection of submissionsto the paper to Criticus, to "censure andsilence, or applaud and permit any or ev­ery writer or writers whom they please,without first having the sanction of thepublic eye--then farewell to the liberty ofthe press--... .farewell to the idea of a ref­ormation in the people--and farewell to theWHIPPER" (Chronicle, August 14, 1788).

Reader opinion seems to have pre­ferred publishing unsavory pieces like"The Celebration" to the alternative of cen­sorship. Whipper, in true Jeffersonianspirit, believes that exposure to a varietyof even poor writing is the only way todevelop a literary sensibility and "a refor­mation in the people." These writers allcontinued to comment, favorably, unfa­vorably, and with personal venom, on oneanother's writing, and the Chronicle con­tinued to print rough homemade verseslike "The Celebration" from time to time.For Pedro and Whipper, literature was notexempt from the democratic process.

The Chronicle published a great vari­ety of political poems, more standard in

10

form, content, and meter than PhiloIndependantic's "Celebration." These po­ems proclaimed the rising glory ofAmerica, exhorted Americans to be indus­trious, virtuous, and patriotic, and sangpraise to Washington and Franklin. Therewere romantic love poems and pastoralelegies, poems condemning the popular­ity of state and local lotteries and gam­bling, complaints about the court system­-in short, any subject of popular concernfound its way into the Chronicle in verseform. The two poems I have discussedhere present only an extremely limitedsampling of what the Chronicle or anyother late eighteenth-century provincialAmerican newspaper has to offer. Thoughunlikely to revolutionize popular (or schol­arly) opinion about the "dark years" inAmerican literature before Emerson, thesepoets and their poems provide contem­porary readers with a glimpse into ourearliest literary tastes and standards. Inplaces like the Chronicle, we find a peopledefining themselves through poetry--anddefining poetry itself--with the vigor andpassion of those engrossed in the con­

struction ofa new national identity. ~

Ann Brunjes isAssistant Professor ofEnglish