MDDM Ch. 21 The Pennsylvaniad

[jbor]

There was a spate of mock epics written during the latter half of the 18th
and early 19th centuries on the model of Pope's 'Dunciad', both in England
(Charles Churchill's 'Rosciad' of 1761 is probably the most notable of these
- Churchill was a close friend of David Garrick) and in America, including
'The Anarchiad' and 'The Columbiad', which were composed by various members
of the so-called Conneticut Wits: Yaleites Joel Barlow, Lemuel Hopkins,
David Humphries, John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight and others, also known as the
Hartford Wits. I think it likely that 'The Anarchiad', also a political
satire, is Pynchon's immediate source for his American mock mock epic in
Tox's 'Pennsylvaniad':

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple&c=amverse&cc=amvers
e&sid=a37a5fcf50b6ea45f964ab556f7f6298&q1=anarchiad&rgn=div1&view=text&idno=
BAD5699.0001.001&node=BAD5699.0001.001%3A1

http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/barlow.htm

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/connwits.html

Quotations from and info about Churchill's 'Rosciad':

http://www.bartleby.com/100/277.html

http://www.bartleby.com/220/1709.html

Don't know if either of these were mentioned in the first go-round?

best


jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> 217.2 "As Mr Tox says in his _Pennsylvaniad_ ... " First mention.
> 
> 217.5 "Pelf" n. *Contemptuous*. money or wealth, esp. if dishonestly acquired;
> lucre [14th c. from Old French *pelfre* booty; related to Latin *pilare* to
> despoil]
> 
> I guess it's also related to the verb "pilfer". The _Pennsylvaniad_ seems to
> be a parody of a style of satirical text of the period which itself was a
> parody of the classical epic form (cf. Pope's _Dunciad_).