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Hartford Wits
The Hartford Wits were a group of young writers from Connecticut in the late eighteenth century and included John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, David Humphreys, Joel Barlow and Lemuel Hopkins. Originally the Connecticut Wits, this group formed in the late eighteenth century as a literary society at Yale College and then assumed a new name, the Hartford Wits. Their writings satirized an outmoded curriculum and, more significantly, society and the politics of the mid-1780s. Over the span of American Revolution Their dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation appeared in '' The Anarchiad'' (1786–1787), written by Humphreys, Joel Barlow, Trumbull (the oldest Wit), and Hopkins. In satirizing democratic society, this mock-epic promoted the federal union delineated by the 1787 Federal Convention at Philadelphia. Despite writing in a satiric tone, some of the Wits—in particular, Humphreys and Barlow—joined the Continental army. Moreover, Dwight became a minister, serving a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford and its most populous city is Bridgeport. Historically the state is part of New England as well as the tri-state area with New York and New Jersey. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of "Quinnetuket”, a Mohegan-Pequot word for "long tidal river". Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutchmen who established a small, short-lived settlement called House of Hope in Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut Rivers. Half of Connecticut was initially claimed by the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, although the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Trumbull (poet)
John Trumbull (April 24, 1750 – May 11, 1831) was an American poet. Biography Trumbull was born in what is now Watertown, Connecticut, where his father was a Congregational preacher. At the age of seven he passed his entrance examinations at Yale, but did not enter until 1763; he graduated in 1767, studied law there, and in 1771–1773 was a tutor (taking part in teaching and supervising the undergraduates). While studying at Yale he had contributed in 1769–1770 ten essays, called "The Meddler", imitating ''The Spectator,'' to the ''Boston Chronicle,'' and in 1770 similar essays, signed " The Correspondent" to the '' Connecticut Journal and New Haven Post Boy.'' While a tutor he wrote his first satire in verse, '' The Progress of Dulness'' (1772–1773), an attack in three poems on educational methods of his time. His great poem, which ranks him with Philip Freneau and Francis Hopkinson as an American political satirist of the period of the War of Independence, was '' M'Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timothy Dwight IV
Timothy Dwight (May 14, 1752January 11, 1817) was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817). Early life Timothy Dwight was born May 14, 1752, in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Dwight family had a long association with Yale College, as it was then known. Dwight's paternal grandfather, Colonel Timothy Dwight, was born 19 October 1694, and died April 30, 1771. His father, a merchant and farmer known as Major Timothy Dwight, was born May 27, 1726, graduated from Yale in 1744, served in the American Revolutionary War, and died June 10, 1777. His mother Mary Edwards (1734–1807) was the third daughter of theologian Jonathan Edwards. Dwight was said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson, and to have been able to read the Bible before he was four years old. He had 12 younger siblings, including journalist Theodore Dwight (1764–1846). Dwight graduated from Yale in 176 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Humphreys (soldier)
David Humphreys (July 10, 1752 – February 21, 1818) was an American Revolutionary War colonel and aide de camp to George Washington, a secretary and intelligence agent for Benjamin Franklin in Paris, American minister to Portugal and then to Spain, entrepreneur who brought Merino sheep to America and member of the Connecticut state legislature. A poet and author, he was one of the "Hartford Wits." Early life He was born in what was then Derby, Connecticut, and now a part of the neighboring town of Ansonia, in the First Congregational Church parsonage, a spacious two-story house at 37 Elm St. called the David Humphreys House. He was the youngest of five children (four sons and a daughter) of the Rev. Daniel and Sarah Riggs Bowers Humphreys. Humphreys' father was parson of the church from 1733, the year after he graduated from Yale, to 1787—a run of 54 years. Daniel Humphreys was the second husband of Sarah Riggs Bowers, known in Derby as "Lady Humphreys" for her "dignity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joel Barlow
Joel Barlow (March 24, 1754 – December 26, 1812) was an American poet, and diplomat, and politician. In politics, he supported the French Revolution and was an ardent Jeffersonian republican. He worked as an agent for American speculator William Duer to set up the Scioto Company in Paris in 1788, and to sell worthless deeds to land in the Northwest Territory which it did not own. Scholars believe that he did not know the transactions were fraudulent. He stayed in Paris, becoming involved in the French Revolution. He was elected to the Assembly and given French citizenship in 1792. In his own time, Barlow was known especially for the epic poem '' The Columbiad'', a later version of the ''Vision of Columbus'' (1807),Brian PelandaDeclarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Behind the Passage of Early American Copyright Laws, 1783-1787 '' Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.'' Vol. 58 (2011), pp. 431, 442-448 . though modern readers rank '' The H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lemuel Hopkins
Lemuel Hopkins (June 19, 1750 – April 14, 1801) was an American poet and physician who was a member of the Hartford Wits, a group of literary satirists active in the late eighteenth century. A politically conservative Federalist, he coauthored '' The Anarchiad'' (1786–1787), a lengthy satiric poem critical of popular democracy and of the Articles of Confederation. His fellow authors on the poem were three other leading Wits: David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, and John Trumbull. Hopkins practiced medicine in Litchfield and Hartford and received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale University in 1784. Hopkins died of pneumonia and was interred at Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground. References External links * ''The Anarchiad: A New England Poem'' - full text via the Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Society
A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newsletters, and hold meetings where findings can be presented and discussed. Some are more academic and scholarly, while others are more social groups of amateurs who appreciate a chance to discuss their favourite writer with other hobbyists. Historically, "literary society" has also referred to Salon (gathering), salons such as those of Madame de Stael, Madame Geoffrin and Madame de Tencin in Ancien Regime France. Another meaning was of college literary societies, student groups specific to the United States. The oldest formal societies for writing and promoting poetry are the chamber of rhetoric, chambers of rhetoric in the Low Countries, which date back to the Middle Ages. 19th century literary societies Modern examples of literary societi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, when its schools were confederated and the institution was renamed Yale University. It is ranked as one of the top colleges in the United States. Originally established to train Congregationalist ministers, the college began teaching humanities and natural sciences by the late 18th century. At the same time, students began organizing extracurricular organizations: first literary societies, and later publications, sports teams, and singing groups. By the middle of the 19th century, it was the largest college in the United States. In 1847, it was joined by another undergraduate school at Yale, the Sheffield Scientific School, which was absorbed into the college in 1956. These merged curricula became the basis of the modern-day liberal arts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Anarchiad
''The Anarchiad'' (1786–87) is an American mock-epic poem that reflected Federalist concerns during the formation of the United States. ''The Anarchiad, or American Antiquities: A Poem on the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night'' was penned by four members of the Hartford Wits: David Humphreys, John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and Lemuel Hopkins. It was serialized in 12 parts in ''The New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine'' between October 26, 1786 and September 13, 1787. ''The Anarchiad'' drew inspiration from Alexander Pope's satiric epics like ''The Dunciad'' and James MacPherson's forged Ossian cycle of epic poems, which inspired the pseudo-classical setting as a vehicle for satire. The poem purported to be fragments of an ancient heroic poem unearthed in ruined fortifications to the west. As a literary counterpart to ''The Federalist Papers'', the poem criticized the dysfunctional Articles of Confederation, demanded a stronger central government, and rebuked the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the nation's seventh-largest and one of world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker. The city served as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's inde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elihu Hubbard Smith
Elihu Hubbard Smith (September 4, 1771 – September 19, 1798) was an American author, physician, and man of letters. Early life and education Smith was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, to Dr. Reuben Smith and Abigail Hubbard Smith. He entered Yale College at the age of 11 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1786, making him Yale's youngest graduate at the time. He studied another year with Timothy Dwight at the academy at Greenfield Hill in Fairfield and went on to attend lectures at the Medical College of Philadelphia in 1790. He never received a medical degree but returned to Connecticut in late 1791 and attempted to establish a medical practice in Wethersfield, albeit with little success. He became a practicing physician in New York City in 1793, joined New York Hospital in 1796, and published articles on plagues and pestilential fevers in ancient Athens and Syracuse. Literary career Smith wrote the first American comic opera, ''Edwin and Angelina; or, The Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hartford Wits
The Hartford Wits were a group of young writers from Connecticut in the late eighteenth century and included John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, David Humphreys, Joel Barlow and Lemuel Hopkins. Originally the Connecticut Wits, this group formed in the late eighteenth century as a literary society at Yale College and then assumed a new name, the Hartford Wits. Their writings satirized an outmoded curriculum and, more significantly, society and the politics of the mid-1780s. Over the span of American Revolution Their dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation appeared in '' The Anarchiad'' (1786–1787), written by Humphreys, Joel Barlow, Trumbull (the oldest Wit), and Hopkins. In satirizing democratic society, this mock-epic promoted the federal union delineated by the 1787 Federal Convention at Philadelphia. Despite writing in a satiric tone, some of the Wits—in particular, Humphreys and Barlow—joined the Continental army. Moreover, Dwight became a minister, serving a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
