The Columbiad: A Poem

by Joel Barlow

But these circumstances of classical regularity are of little consideration in estimating the real merit of any work of this nature. Its merit must depend on the importance of the action, the disposition of the parts, the invention and application of incidents, the propriety of the illustrations, the liveliness and chastity of the images, the suitable intervention of machinery, the moral tendency of the manners, the strength and sublimity of the sentiments; the whole being clothed in language whose energy, harmony and elegance shall constitute a style every where suited to the matter they have to treat. It is impossible for me to determine how far I may have succeeded in any of these particulars. This must be decided by others, the result of whose decision I shall never know. But there is one point of view in which I wish the reader to place the character of my work, before he pronounces on its merit: I mean its political tendency. There are two distinct objects to be kept in view in the conduct of a narrative poem; the poetical object and the moral object. The poetical is the fictitious design of the action; the moral is the real design of the poem.

In the Iliad of Homer the poetical object is to kindle, nourish, sustain and allay the anger of Achilles. This end is constantly kept in view; and the action proper to attain it is conducted with wonderful judgment thro a long series of incidents, which elevate the mind of the reader, and excite not only a veneration for the creative powers of the poet, but an ardent emulation of his heroes, a desire to imitate and rival some of the great actors in the splendid scene; perhaps to endeavor to carry into real life the fictions with which we are so much enchanted.

Such a high degree of interest excited by the first object above mentioned, the fictitious design of the action, would make it extremely important that the second object, the real design of the poem, should be beneficial to society. But the real design in the Iliad was directly the reverse. Its obvious tendency was to inflame the minds of young readers with an enthusiastic ardor for military fame; to inculcate the pernicious doctrine of the divine right of kings; to teach both prince and people that military plunder was the most honorable mode of acquiring property; and that conquest, violence and war were the best employment of nations, the most glorious prerogative of bodily strength and of cultivated mind.

How much of the fatal policy of states, and of the miseries and degradations of social man, have been occasioned by the false notions of honor inspired by the works of Homer, it is not easy to ascertain. The probability is, that however astonishing they are as monuments of human intellect, and how long soever they have been the subject of universal praise, they have unhappily done more harm than good. My veneration for his genius is equal to that of his most idolatrous readers; but my reflections on the history of human errors have forced upon me the opinion that his existence has really proved one of the signal misfortunes of mankind.

The moral tendency of the AEneid of Virgil is nearly as pernicious as that of the works of Homer. Its poetical or fictitious design, the settlement of his hero in Italy, is well delineated and steadily pursued. This object must have been far more interesting to the Romans than the anger of Achilles could have been to the Greeks. Had Virgil written his poem one or two centuries earlier than he did, while his countrymen felt that they had a country and were not themselves the property of a master, they must have glowed with enthusiasm in reciting the fabulous labors of their ancestors, and adored the songster who could have thus elevated so endearing a subject; who could have adorned it with such an interesting variety of incidents, such weight of pathos, such majesty of sentiment and harmony of verse. But Virgil wrote and felt like a subject, not like a citizen. The real design of his poem was to increase the veneration of the people for a master, whoever he might be, and to encourage like Homer the great system of military depredation.

Lucan is the only republican among the ancient epic poets. But the action of his rambling tho majestic poem is so badly arranged as to destroy, in a poetical sense, the life and interest of the great national subject on which it is founded; at the same time that it abounds in the most exalted sentiments and original views of manners, highly favorable to the love of justice and the detestation of war. If a mind, formed like that of Lucan, as to its moral and political cast, and endowed with the creative energy of Homer, had sung to the early Greeks the fall of Troy or the labors of Hercules, his work (taking the place which those of Homer have unfortunately occupied) as a splendid model for all succeeding ages, would have given a very different turn to the pursuits of heroes and the policy of nations. Ambition might then have become a useful passion, instead of a destructive disease.

In the poem here presented to the public the objects, as in other works of the kind, are two, the fictitious object of the action and the real object of the poem. The first of these is to sooth and satisfy the desponding mind of Columbus; to show him that his labors, tho ill rewarded by his contemporaries, had not been performed in vain; that he had opened the way to the most extensive career of civilization and public happiness; and that he would one day be recognised as the author of the greatest benefits to the human race. This object is steadily kept in view; and the actions, images and sentiments are so disposed as probably to attain the end. But the real object of the poem embraces a larger scope; it is to inculcate the love of rational liberty, and to discountenance the deleterious passion for violence and war; to show that on the basis of the republican principle all good morals, as well as good government and hopes of permanent peace, must be founded; and to convince the student in political science, that the theoretical question of the future advancement of human society, till states as well as individuals arrive at universal civilization, is held in dispute and still unsettled only because we have had too little experience of organized liberty in the government of nations to have well considered its effects.

I cannot expect that every reader, nor even every republican reader, will join me in opinion with respect to the future progress of society and the civilization of states; but there are two sentiments in which I think all men will agree: that the event is desirable, and that to believe it practicable is one step towards rendering it so. This being the case, they ought to pardon a writer, if not applaud him, for endeavoring to inculcate this belief.

I have taken the liberty, notwithstanding the recency of the events, to make some changes in the order of several of the principal battles described in this poem. I have associated the actions of Starke, Herkimer, Brown and Francis in the battle of Saratoga, tho they happened at some distance from that battle, both as to time and place. A like circumstance will be noticed with respect to Sumter, Jackson of Georgia and some others in the battle of Eutaw. I have supposed a citadel mined and blown up in the siege of York, and two ships of war grappled and blown up in the naval battle of Degrasse and Graves. It is presumed that these circumstances require no apology; as in the two latter cases the events are incidental to such situations, and they here serve the principal purpose, being meant to increase our natural horror for the havoc and miseries of war in general. And with regard to the two former cases we ought to consider that, in the epic field, the interest to be excited by the action cannot be sustained by following the gazette, as Lucan has done. The desultory parts of the historical action must be brought together and be made to elevate and strengthen each other, so as to press upon the mind with the full force of their symmetry and unity. Where the events are recent and the actors known, the only duty imposed by that circumstance on the poet is to do them historical justice, and not ascribe to one hero the actions of another. But the scales of justice in this case are not necessarily accompanied by the calendar and the map.

It will occur to most of my readers that the modern modes of fighting, as likewise the instruments and terms now used in war, are not yet rendered familiar in poetical language. It is doubtless from an unwarrantable timidity, or want of confidence in their own powers of description, that modern poets have made so little use of this kind of riches that lay before them. I confess that I imbibed the common prejudice, and remained a long time in the error of supposing that the ancients had a poetical advantage over us in respect to the dignity of the names of the weapons used in war, if not in their number and variety. And when I published a sketch of the present poem, under the title of The Vision of Columbus, I labored under the embarrassment of that idea. I am now convinced that the advantage, at least as to the weapons, is on the side of the moderns. There are better sounding names and more variety in the instruments, works, stratagems and other artifices employed in our war system than in theirs. In short, the modern military dictionary is more copious than the ancient, and the words at least as poetical.