Literary Hangover is a podcast, released twice on Saturdays each month, in which Matt Lech and his friends chat about fiction and the historical, social, and political forces behind the creation of it and represented by it.

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  • 33 - 'The History of Colonel Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion' by Ebenezer Cook (1728)
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    02:27:20

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    Alex and I return with another poem from the poet laureat of colonial Maryland, Ebenezer Cook, this time his narrative of Bacon's Rebellion(pdf).

    How memory-holed is Bacon's Rebellion? The false promise of promotional literature and the headright system. Economic anxiety and indian hating. Trade disputes, theft, jurisdiction, and the start of the rebellion. Bacon seeing no difference between friend and enemy indians. The spectre of Cromwell. George Washington's great grandfather: war criminal. Nathaniel Bacon, failson, scammer, world-traveler. Defense spending boondoggles and paying your taxes in tobacco. Selling guns to indians. Bacon's alliance/battle with Posseclay and the Occaneechees. Who's side is Cook on? Bacon uses loyalist women as a human shield, is more "Blue Lives Matter" than DSA. Bacon's bloody flux and his surviving rebellion. The merchant, Captain Grantham's, dirty trick.

    @Alecks_Guns, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    References:

    Rice, James D. 2012. Tales from a revolution: Bacon's Rebellion and the transformation of early America. New York City: Oxford University Press.

    Schmidt, Ethan A. 2016. The divided dominion: social conflict and Indian hatred in early Virginia.

    Washburn, Wilcomb E. 1972. The Governor and the rebel; a history of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. New York: Norton.

  • Reading "Bacon's Rebellion" by Ebenezer Cook (1731)

    This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

    My narration of Ebenezer Cook's 1731 poem, "The History of Colonel Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. Done into Hudibrastic Verse, from an old MS," which gives a pro-loyalist and anti-Bacon view common prior to the American Revolution, in the Hudibrastic style of his earlier "Sot-Weed Factor."

    This will be the subject of the next episode.

    Link to the text:

    https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N02853.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

  • Reading 'The Sot-Weed Factor' by Ebenezer Cook (1708)
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    32:34

    This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

    Here's my reading of the satirical poem, The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland, by Ebenezer Cook (1708), as discussed in episode 32. Thanks for your support.

  • 32 - 'The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, A Voyage To Maryland' by Ebenezer Cook (1708)
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    01:33:04

    This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

    Alex and I discuss Ebenezer Cook's 1708 poem "The Sot-Weed Factor." The scant documentation we have for Cook's life. Cooks use of hudibrastic tetrameter and couplets. Who were the Chesapeake tobacco proletariat? The cheap linen clothing of American workers. Nationalism and Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities." The Cain myth and racial othering. Queen Elizabeth I's racism and how England created a labor force for the colonies. America as a giant labor camp. Humanity's timeless love for dick jokes. The Annapolis legal swamp. "Going native." The imperial motivation for determining how Indians came to America. Card-playing witches. Hangover remedies. Getting scammed by a Quaker.

    @Alecks_Guns, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    References:

    Full poem here: http://theotherpages.org/poems/cook02.html

    Gregory A. Carey, "The Poem as Con Game: Dual Satire and the Three Levels of Narrative in Ebenezer Cooke's "The Sot-Weed Factor"," The Southern Literary Journal 23, no. 1 (1990), http://www.questia.com/read/1G1-89390389/the-poem-as-con-game-dual-satire-and-the-three-levels.

    Ford, Sarah Gilbreath. "Humor's Role in Imagining America: Ebenezer Cook's The Sot-Weed Factor." The Southern Literary Journal 35, no. 2 (2003): 1-12.

    'The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic' by Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker (2000) Full book here:

    ( https://libcom.org/library/many-headed-hydra-peter-linebaugh-marcus-rediker/ )

    Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale Research

    The censored line was ommitted in the collection "Shea's Early Southern Tracts, Vol 2" used by Project Gutenberg.

    On which he sat, and straight begun

    To load with Weed his Indian Gun;

    In length, scarce longer than one's Finger,

    Or that for which the Ladies linger:

    His Pipe smoak'd out with aweful Grace,

    With aspect grave and solemn pace;

  • 31 - 'The Pilgrim's Progress' by John Bunyan (1678)
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    02:05:55

    This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

    Alex and Matt return this week to discuss John Bunyan's 1678 work of allegorical fiction, 'The Pilgrim's Progress.' The significance of Pilgrim's Progress in anglo mythology. Bunyan's proletarian background. Why does Pilgrim's Progress remind us to hate our family, John Bunyan vs. against and civility. Bunyan choosing prison over selling out for the sake of being with his family. Coolio and walking in the Shadow of the Valley of Death. More anti-Catholicism. Wanton women Vanity Fair and Bunyan's ability to write in prison. Bunyan's traumatic relationship with documentation.

    @Alecks_Guns, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    References:

    Excellent narration of the full text from Aneko Press:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMtmnv84GxY&t=20433s

    Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan. ''IntelliQuest World's 100 Greatest Books'' 1995

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZIgLVa9WkA

    Seidel, Kevin. "Pilgrim's Progress and the Book." ELH 77, no. 2 (2010): 509-534.

    Greaves, Richard L. ""Let Truth Be Free": John Bunyan and the Restoration Crisis of 1667-1673." Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 28, no. 4 (1996): 587-605.

  • 30 - 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller (1953)
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    Today, Alex, Grace, and Matt talk about Arthur Miller's 1953 play 'The Crucible' and its Salem Witch Trial and McCarthyite contexts. Miller in 1992 on why the market is failing theater and why the state needs to sponsor it. Arthur Miller, fellow-travelling and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Early witch culture that likely influenced the girls' performances/delusions. Samuel Parris fails at life, squanders fathers' plantation fortune. Tituba was more indigenous than black, and didn't introduce witchcraft to the community. The Putnam family and the rural/urban, agricultural/commercial divide. Abigail and Marilyn Monroe. How his relationship with Marilyn Monroe made Miller a target for HUAC. Hale and the limits of ideology. Proctor and the propaganda value of a name.

    @Alecks_Guns, @GraceJackson, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    Act One of The Crucible here:

    https://youtu.be/Dtr9RGeHnPM

    References:

    An Unofficial Cultural Ambassador - Arthur Miller and the Cultural Cold War. Abrams, N. D., Romijn, P. (ed.), Scott-Smith, G. (ed.) & Segal, J. (ed.), 1 Jan 2012, Divided Dreamworlds? : The Cultural Cold War in East and West. 2012 ed. Amsterdam University Press, p. 13-32

    American Masters: None Without Sin documentary (2003)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cf9r94ZIyg

    Baker, Emerson W. 2016. Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. New York: Oxford Univ Press.

    Boyer, Paul S., and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft.

    Hill, Frances. 2002. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Cambrigde, MA.: Da Capo Press.

    Arthur Miller with Charlie Rose in 1992

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coWRDfpqa6A

  • 29 - 'Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave' by Aphra Behn (1688)
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    Grace joins Alex and Matt once again to discuss Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, published in 1688. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to British colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn's text is a first-person account of his life, love, rebellion, and execution. Written by Aphra Behn, who was - in addition to being a spy, feminist, monarchist, and original tory - the first professional female writer.

    @Alecks_Guns, @GraceJackson, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    References:

    BBC's In Our Time podcast on Aphra Behn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnVkzdCOu7Q&t=1822s

    Oroonoko and the Rise of the Novel by William Smith on YouTube:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htVteRU9450

    Todd, Janet. 1998. The Critical Fortunes of Aphra Behn. Columbia, SC: Camden House.

    Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave on Librivox:

    https://librivox.org/oroonoko-or-the-royal-slave-by-aphra-behn/

  • 28 - The Salem Witch Trials
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    02:13:32

    Alex and Matt return, this time to discuss the social, political and material origins of the Salem Witch Trials. Indian and imperial war trauma in the late 1600s. The Glorious Revolution and the coup of Andros by puritan leaders in Massachusetts. The economic divide between mercantile Salem Town and the agricultural offshoot that was ground zero for the outbreak, Salem Village. Increase and Cotton Mather's responsibility in spreading belief in witches. The difference between witch hunts and awakenings being in the interpretation of adults. Gender and witch accusations. George Burrough's perfect recitation of the Lord's prayer. Sleep paralysis, conversion disorder, and fraud as all explanations for the witch accusations. Cotton Mather's damage control for the Puritan theocracy, The Wonders of the Invisible World. European witch history.

    @Alecks_Guns, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    References:

    Baker, Emerson W. 2016. Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. New York: Oxford Univ Press.

    Boyer, Paul S., and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft.

    Hill, Frances. 2002. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Cambrigde, MA.: Da Capo Press.

    Glorious Revolution by Jabzy on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77WJU3aQEA))

  • 27 - 'Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times' by Lydia Maria Child (1824)
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    01:31:02

    This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

    Hey LitHangers! Matt's solo this week with an introduction to the first novel by one of the 19th century's "social justice warriors" named Lydia Maria Child. Hobomok can be seen as a precursor to Hope Leslie (1827), and is an interesting book in its own right that takes 'other' natives, deviant colonial men, and colonial women from the periphery to the center of the narrative.

    References:

    Dr. Cornel West on the Joe Rogan Experience (relevent portion at 1h02m)

    Child, Lydia Maria; Carolyn L. Karcher. 2011. Hobomok and Other Writings on Indians. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

    Karcher, Carolyn L. 2012. The First Woman in the Republic A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child. Durham: Duke University Press.

    The American History Podcast. Plymouth 7: The Lyford Affair. Posted on April 10, 2018

  • 26 - 'The Pioneers' by James Fenimore Cooper (1823) - Part 2
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    01:45:59

    This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

    Alex and Matt return to finish James Fenimore Cooper's "The Pioneers." The relationship between colonization and racism. Submerged nobility in Cooper's fiction. How American colonization really took off after 1776. Turkey shoots and how Natty calling Cooper's first non-slave black character the N-word illustrates the work of Frantz Fanon. Passenger pigeons as the east coast's bison and how cops like to useold military equipment. Natty's principled opposition to surplus. Marmaduke Temple's elite conservationism. Places not described in books. Economic espionage by the new sheriff. Kirby as the urban, proletarian Natty. Why jailbreaks were indeed common in the real life Cooperstown. Marmaduke Temple's double-dipping on behalf of the Effinghams.

    @Alecks_Guns, @MattLech

    @LitHangover

    Sources:

    Librivox's recording of The Pioneers

    Buchholz, Douglas. Landownership and Representation of Social Conflict in The Pioneers. Presented at the 7th Cooper Seminar, James Fenimore Cooper: His Country and His Art at the State University of New York College at Oneonta, July, 1989

    de Fee, Nicole. The Postcolonial Paradox of a Re-imagined History in Cooper's The Pioneers. Presented at the Cooper Panel No. 1 (General Topics) of the 2008 Conference of the American Literature Association in San Francisco

    Slotkin, Richard. 1973. Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.

    Taylor, Alan. The Great Change Begins: Settling the Forest of Central New York. Published in New York History, Vol. LXXV, No. 3 (July 1995), pp. 265-290.