Joel Barlow
Joel Barlow was an American poet, diplomat, and educator who played a notable role in the cultural and political landscape of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Raised in Connecticut during the American Revolution, he attended Yale College, where he began writing poetry and became involved in the colonial cause. Barlow's literary career blossomed with the publication of "The Vision of Columbus" in 1787, an extensive poem that established his reputation. His work attracted the attention of prominent thinkers, including Thomas Paine, with whom he collaborated during his years in Europe.
For 17 years, Barlow lived in Europe, where he engaged in social criticism and wrote various works, including the whimsical mock epic "The Hasty Pudding." He also held diplomatic positions, notably serving as consul to Algiers and later as a minister to France, where he negotiated treaties on behalf of the United States. Barlow's life was marked by a blend of literary achievement and diplomatic service, reflecting the complexities of his time. He died in 1812 near Krakow, Poland, leaving behind a legacy intertwined with American literary and diplomatic history.
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Joel Barlow
Poet
- Born: March 24, 1754
- Birthplace: Redding, Connecticut
- Died: December 24, 1812
- Place of death: Zarnowiec, Poland
Biography
Joel Barlow was raised in Connecticut in the years immediately preceding the American Revolution. After a brief stint at Dartmouth, he began attending Yale College in 1774; included among his classmates was teacher and dictionary writer Noah Webster. During his time at Yale, Barlow began writing poetry. Sympathetic to the colonial cause, he spent part of one summer vacation in the Connecticut militia and participated in the Battle of Long Island. He later served in the army for a short time as a chaplain. As a senior, he completed his first long poem, “The Prospect of Peace,” and graduated from Yale in 1778.
For the next several years he taught school, pursued graduate studies in philosophy, published a journal, and a new version of the Book of Psalms. In 1781, he married Ruth Baldwin, entering into a long and happy marriage. Over the course of the decade, he spent a year editing the colonial journal The American Mercury, contributed pieces to The Anarchiad, a publication of the group called the Hartford Wits, and published small satirical prose pieces and poems in various papers, working all the while on his immense poem The Vision of Columbus, which appeared in 1787. Composed of nine books and several thousand lines in length, The Vision of Columbus secured Barlow’s literary fame.
Soon thereafter, Barlow moved to Europe, where he lived for seventeen years. There, he formed the acquaintance of several philosophers and prominent thinkers of the day, including Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense. When Paine was imprisoned in Paris for protesting the extreme methods of the revolutionary government, Barlow saw to the publication of Paine’s essay about deism, “The Age of Reason.” In England, he published “Advice to the Privileged Orders,” a work of social criticism about the state’s responsibility to the individual. Fleeing England, he spent time in Paris, where he wrote anti-monarchy tracts and verse. During his tenure in France, however, he also wrote “The Hasty Pudding” in 1796, a whimsical mock epic about a traveler’s nostalgia for his favorite New England dish.
Becoming wealthy through a series of trading ventures, Barlow served the United States government in various diplomatic posts over the next several years, first working as consul to Algiers and later as a minister to France. Throughout this period, he continued to revise The Vision of Columbus and published translations of French works. An able diplomat, Barlow was dispatched in 1811 to negotiate an American treaty with Napoleon. Forced by the French emperor’s invasion of Russia to follow after him, Barlow trailed the French army across Europe until he was stricken with inflammation of the lungs. He died on Christmas Eve, 1812, in a small village near Krakow, Poland.