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Cook, EbenezerWe have 1 book for this author.
Ebenezer Cooke (ca.1667-ca.1732), a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr” (1707). He has been fictionalized by John Barth as the comically innocent protagonist of The Sot-Weed Factor, a novel in which a series of fantastic misadventures leads Cooke to write his poem. LifeNot a great deal is known about the life of Cooke (whose name is sometimes spelled “Cook”). However, it is known that Cooke, like the persona of his poem, voyaged to Maryland as a young man. He entered the bar of Prince George's County, Maryland, and practiced law before returning to London by 1694. He later returned to Maryland after inheriting a half interest in his father’s estate at Malden, Maryland. [1] “The Sot-Weed Factor”Written in Hudibrastic couplets, the poem is, on its surface, a scathing Juvenalian satire of America and its colonists, and a parody of the pamphlets that advertised colonization as easy and lucrative (Arner 38,40). The persona comes to Maryland as a tobacco merchant, or “sot-weed factor.” He is shocked by the brutishness of Native Americans and English settlers alike, and he is swindled by an “ambodexter quack,” or corrupt lawyer. He leaves the colony in disgust. Some critics, notably including Arner, J.A. Lemay (81,93) and more recently G.A. Carey and Sarah Ford, read the poem as a dual satire, targeting the closed-minded, embittered, failed colonist as much as it satirizes the colony. This dual satire, Ford argues, helped to promote a national identity, as “the colonists become insiders who perceive the humor in the factor's inability to adapt to life in America” (1). Micklus, too, sees the poem’s humor as contributing to an aspect of American culture—namely, a tendency towards self-referential satire, later further developed by Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin (261). What is significant about the poem, for Micklus, is not what Cooke says about either the colony or the English, but how Cooke goes about showing that his speaker “is a complete ass” (253). Other Works
(Titles and dates are taken from Mark Canada [2].) References
External linksThis biographical information was gathered from the Ebenezer_Cook page, courtesy of the Wikipedia project. BooksThe Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland In which is Describ'd The Laws, Government, Courts and Constitutions of the Country |
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