Slain Jane

WERE PRESIDENT TRUMP THAT WAY inclined, he might usefully ginger up his speeches with references to The Columbiad, a grandiloquent poem of 8,350 lines in nine volumes written by Joel Barlow and published in 1807. It is an American Aeneid, a national epic that takes in the young country’s past, its struggle against British sovereignty, and envisages its shimmering future. Here is the story of making America great first time round. Barlow was an ardent republican who fought in the War of Independence and believed that “American civilisation was world civilisation”. Nevertheless, in 1792 he became a French citizen and was elected to the National Assembly. It was in Paris that he met another American republican, the painter John Vanderlyn. Vanderlyn (1775-1852) had been born at Kingston on the Hudson…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2025

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