biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1754–1812)
|
| biography:
| Poet, diplomat, and writer, born in Redding, Connecticut, USA. He studied at Yale (1778), and engaged in various activities before becoming a lawyer (1786). His early writings, including his poem ‘The Vision of Columbus’ (1787, revised as ‘The Columbiad’, 1807), made him known as one of the ‘Hartford [or Connecticut] Wits’. He went to France (1788) as an agent for a land speculation scheme and spent the next 17 years there and in London, also serving some time as US consul in Algiers. He supported himself by writing, and although he had become more sympathetic to radical thinkers, by 1794 he had become rich through his investments. On returning to the USA (1805), he settled near Washington, DC. He was appointed ambassador to France (1811) and died in Poland the next year, where he had gone in hopes of negotiating a treaty with Napoleon I. He is probably best known today for his mock epic poem, ‘Hasty Pudding’ (1796). |
|
|
