American Verse, 1625-1807; A History (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1909 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III POLITICAL AND SATIRICAL VERSE (a) Political Satire NOT until after the middle of the eighteenth century is satirical verse to be found in American literature.1 The colonists of the seventeenth century, as we have seen, were interested in the rapidly forming history of the New World and in those matters of conscience and religious freedom for which they had emigrated from England. The comparative lack of opposition which they received in America in the exercise of individual worship allowed the satirical temper to remain dormant. Unity of thought based upon common beliefs, purposes, and dangers, bound the colonists together in a fraternal band in which there was a minimum of friction. The colonial governments were for the most part equitable and satisfactory, and offered little ground for complaint. 1The one exception are the poems of Ebenezer Cook. See under " Social and Personal Satire." But in time the natural growth of the colonies destroyed the earlier solidarity of interest. New ideas, new outlooks, a diversity of peoples and purposes brought on the inevitable clash. That which more than any one thing was influential in warming into life the blood of the satirists was the spread of democratic ideas at a time when monarchy was exerting unjust control. A decade before the Declaration of Independence the growing political oppression of England inspired the first satires in American literature. With the great English satirists as models of form, but with an independence of spirit and an individuality of address peculiarly their own, these men fearlessly issued the challenge which was to be carried into action by those who fought at Bunker Hill, Trenton, and Saratoga. Dr. Benjamin Church,1 the well-known Boston physician and poet, wrote the firs...