Tag Archives: satire

The Hartford Wits

from The Anarchiad  (1786-1787)

from The Anarchiad or American Antiquities: a poem on the restoration of chaos and substantial night (1786-1787)

Excerpt: American Antiquities. – No. IV. Extract from The Anarchiad, Book XXIII

by David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, John Trumbull, and Lemuel Hopkins  

Dr. Lemuel Hopkins (1750-1801), principal author of The Anarchiad, was known as an innovative physician who specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis, to which he prescribed fresh air and a healthy diet over old-fashioned “cures” such as donkey’s milk instead cow’s milk. (He later wrote a satirical poem entitled “Epitaph on a Patient Killed by a Cancer Quack.”) Having received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale in 1784, Hopkins was aligned with the Wits in both their intellectual and literary pursuits as well as their Federalist political leanings.  Continue reading from The Anarchiad  (1786-1787) →

The Hartford Wits

from M’Fingal (1782)

from M’Fingal (1782), Canto First, or The Town Meeting

by John Trumbull

John Trumbull (1750-1831), a child prodigy born to the Watertown, Connecticut branch of the Trumbull family, entered Yale in 1763 at the age of 13.  John’s father, the Reverend John Trumbull (1715-1787), was the pastor of the Watertown Congregational Church. His mother, Sarah Whitman, was the daughter of a Farmington minister. Historical evidence indicates that the family enslaved at least six people. Reverend John Trumbull’s cousin, Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785), would become Connecticut’s governor in 1769, serving through the Revolutionary War until 1784. One of Jonathan’s sons, also named John Trumbull (1756-1843), was the famous American artist, “the painter of the American Revolution.”  Continue reading from M’Fingal (1782) →

Charles Dudley Warner

Backlog Studies – Sixth Study, Part III

Backlog Studies – Sixth Study, Part III

by Charles Dudley Warner

Sixth Study

III
Herbert returned to us in March. The Young Lady was spending the winter with us, and March, in spite of the calendar, turned out to be a winter month. It usually is in New England, and April too, for that matter. And I cannot say it is unfortunate for us. There are so many topics to be turned over and settled at our fireside that a winter of ordinary length would make little impression on the list. The fireside is, after all, a sort of private court of chancery, where nothing ever does come to a final decision. The chief effect of talk on any subject is to strengthen one’s own opinions, and, in fact, one never knows exactly what he does believe until he is warmed into conviction by the heat of attack and defence. A man left to himself drifts about like a boat on a calm lake; it is only when the wind blows that the boat goes anywhere. Continue reading Backlog Studies – Sixth Study, Part III →

Charles Dudley Warner

Backlog Studies – Third Study, Parts I, II, III, IV

Backlog Studies, Third Study

by Charles Dudley Warner

Third Study

I
Herbert said, as we sat by the fire one night, that he wished he had turned his attention to writing poetry like Tennyson’s.

The remark was not whimsical, but satirical. Tennyson is a man of talent, who happened to strike a lucky vein, which he has worked with cleverness. The adventurer with a pickaxe in Washoe may happen upon like good fortune. The world is full of poetry as the earth is of “pay-dirt;” one only needs to know how to “strike” it. An able man can make himself almost anything that he will. It is melancholy to think how many epic poets have been lost in the tea-trade, how many dramatists (though the age of the drama has passed) have wasted their genius in great mercantile and mechanical enterprises. I know a man who might have been the poet, the essayist, perhaps the critic, of this country, who chose to become a country judge, to sit day after day upon a bench in an obscure corner of the world, listening to wrangling lawyers and prevaricating witnesses, preferring to judge his fellow-men rather than enlighten them. Continue reading Backlog Studies – Third Study, Parts I, II, III, IV →

Charles Dudley Warner

Backlog Studies – Second Study, Part IV

Backlog Studies, Second Study, Part IV

by Charles Dudley Warner

Second Study

IV

The fireplace wants to be all aglow, the wind rising, the night heavy and black above, but light with sifting snow on the earth, a background of inclemency for the illumined room with its pictured walls, tables heaped with books, capacious easy-chairs and their occupants,—it needs, I say, to glow and throw its rays far through the crystal of the broad windows, in order that we may rightly appreciate the relation of the wide-jambed chimney to domestic architecture in our climate. We fell to talking about it; and, as is usual when the conversation is professedly on one subject, we wandered all around it. The young lady staying with us was roasting chestnuts in the ashes, and the frequent explosions required considerable attention. The mistress, too, sat somewhat alert, ready to rise at any instant and minister to the fancied want of this or that guest, forgetting the reposeful truth that people about a fireside will not have any wants if they are not suggested. The worst of them, if they desire anything, only want something hot, and that later in the evening. And it is an open question whether you ought to associate with people who want that. Continue reading Backlog Studies – Second Study, Part IV →

Charles Dudley Warner

Social Screaming and Dinner-Table Talk

In these two short essays, Warner discusses normal behavior at occasions that ought to be fun: a party and a dinner. However, Warner uses a formal tone and over-analyzes the situations for comedic effect. This is a technique used by comedians to this day. However, Warner wrote at a time when anthropology was a new academic discipline and numerous public societies were dedicated either to studying civilizations or trying to reform public morals and campaign for social causes. Warner’s satire is to turn this kind of analysis back on mundane, unproblematic aspects of society. Continue reading Social Screaming and Dinner-Table Talk →

Charles Dudley Warner

Calvin–A Study of Character

This essay is an extended joke. The title makes the reader think they will get a boring biography of John Calvin (1509-1564), a theologian and leader of the Protestant Reformation. Instead, this is a profile of an interesting and unusual resident of Nook Farm. Can you discover why this Calvin seems slightly different? How does Warner’s writing lead us to think Calvin is something they are not? Continue reading Calvin–A Study of Character →

Wallace Stevens

Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

Here the speaker is bored by all the monotonous “white nightgowns” in his neighborhood—nightgowns presumably worn by his fellow Hartford businessmen who all dress alike, without imagination.  He longs for something fresh and unusual, to add interest to this routine life.  Why do you think he uses the French word, “ceinture”?  What is unusual about the combination of “baboons and periwinkles”?  (Think of the sounds of those words.)  How do you feel about the old, drunk sailor?  Continue reading Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock →

Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens

Speech in Honor of Cornelius Walford

The following speech was delivered at an October 15, 1874, dinner at Hartford’s premier hotel, the Allyn House, given by members of the city’s insurance industry in honor of Britisher Cornelius Walford. A resident of the city for four years, Clemens had its number. He refers to the Hartford Accident Insurance Co., a short-lived company of which he served as a director. Walford (1827-1885) was active in the British insurance industry and the author of an insurance encyclopedia. Continue reading Speech in Honor of Cornelius Walford →

Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens

Speech on the City of Hartford, 1882

The “City of Hartford” speech was delivered at a reception for the Worcester Continentals, a quasi-military group formed in Worcester, Massachusetts, to commemorate the Centennial of the American Revolution, on October 19, 1882. This Hartford Courant reporter’s transcript of an extempore speech notes the audience reaction. The wooden covered bridge from Hartford to East Hartford he refers to, built in 1818, was nearly a thousand feet long. The First Company Governor’s Foot Guard, a ceremonial Connecticut unit that guards the governor, was formed in 1771. Continue reading Speech on the City of Hartford, 1882 →