Poetry
The Hasty-Pudding
Joel Barlow · 1796
Opening lines
Ye Alps audacious, thro' the heavens that rise,
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies ;
Ye Gallic flags that o'er their heights unfurl'd,
Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world,
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
Three cantos for a cornmeal porridge. At the foot of the Alps, the poet gives up singing the flags of the Republic to celebrate this dish which he had the joy of finding again in Savoy, and goes back to the Indian woman who invented it before Columbus arrived. The second canto contrasts learned cooking with the Yankee's plain table and follows the cultivation of maize, from ploughing to harvest. The third describes the evening gathering where the neighbours come to husk the ears, then settles the question of milk, molasses and spoon, in all the forms of the epic.
Context
The title page states that the poem was written at Chambéry, in Savoy, in January 1793, during its author's long stay in France. It appeared in 1796 in the New-York Magazine, then as pamphlets in New York and New Haven the same year, preceded by a preface that makes the simplicity of the table a civic virtue. His contemporaries admired above all the great poem the author had devoted to Columbus, which he reworked in 1807 in an expanded form, poorly received.
Who it is for
Three short cantos in rhymed couplets, with no French translation. The comedy rests entirely on the gap between tone and subject, and is lost if one does not know the ancient models to which it refers.
Prizes and reception
Today the poem by its author most often reprinted in anthologies, judged superior to the great epic on Columbus that had made his reputation.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.