The Sot-Weed Factor is a 1960 novel by the American writer John Barth

John Barth

John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...

, which marks Barth's discovery of Postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

.

Plot

The novel is a satirical epic of the colonization of Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 based on the life of an actual poet, Ebenezer Cooke

Ebenezer Cooke

Ebenezer Cooke , a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr”...

, who wrote a poem of the same title. The Sot-Weed Factor

The Sot-Weed Factor

The Sot-Weed Factor is a 1960 novel by the American writer John Barth, which marks Barth's discovery of Postmodernism.-Plot:The novel is a satirical epic of the colonization of Maryland based on the life of an actual poet, Ebenezer Cooke, who wrote a poem of the same title...

is what Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye

Herman Northrop Frye, was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century....

 called an anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

— a large, loosely structured work, with digressions, distractions, stories within stories, and lists (such as a lengthy exchange of insulting terms by two prostitutes). The fictional Ebenezer Cooke (repeatedly described as "poet and virgin") is a Candide

Candide

Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...

-like innocent who sets out to write a heroic epic, becomes disillusioned and ends up writing a biting satire.

The novel is set in the 1680s and 90s in London and on the eastern shore of the colony of Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

. It tells the story of an English poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 named Ebenezer Cooke

Ebenezer Cooke

Ebenezer Cooke , a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr”...

 who is given the title "Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

 of Maryland" by Charles Calvert

Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore

Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, 2nd Proprietor and 6th and 9th Proprietary Governor of Maryland , inherited the colony in 1675 upon the death of his father, Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. He had been his father's Deputy Governor since 1661 when he arrived in the colony at the age of 24...

. He undergoes many adventures on his journey to Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 and while in Maryland, all the while striving to preserve his innocence (i.e. his virginity). The book takes its title from the grand poem that Cooke composes throughout the story, which was originally intended to sing the praises of Maryland, but ends up being a biting satire based on his disillusioning experiences.

Writing process

The The Sot-Weed Factor was initially intended, with Barth's first two, as the concluding novel on a trilogy on nihilism

Nihilism

Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...

, but the project took a different direction as a consequence of Barth maturation as a writer.

The novel takes its title from a poem of the same name published in London in 1708 and signed Ebenezer Cooke

Ebenezer Cooke

Ebenezer Cooke , a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr”...

. "Sot-weed" is an old term for the tobacco plant

Nicotiana tabacum

Nicotiana tabacum, or cultivated tobacco, is a perennial herbaceous plant. It is found only in cultivation, where it is the most commonly grown of all plants in the Nicotiana genus, and its leaves are commercially grown in many countries to be processed into tobacco. It grows to heights between 1...

. A "factor

Factor (agent)

A factor, from the Latin "he who does" , is a person who professionally acts as the representative of another individual or other legal entity, historically with his seat at a factory , notably in the following contexts:-Mercantile factor:In a relatively large company, there could be a hierarchy,...

" is a middleman who buys something to resell it. As Barth explained:

The Sot–Weed Factor began with the title and, of course, Ebenezer Cooke's original poem. . . . Nobody knows where the real chap is buried; I made up a grave for Ebenezer because I wanted to write his epitaph.

Barth also made extensive use of the few pieces of information known at the time about the historical Cooke, his assumed father and grandfather, both called Andrew Cooke, and his sister, Anna.

The novel parodies, mimics, recuperates and rewrites

Reprise

Reprise is a fundamental device in the history of art. In literature, a reprise consists of the rewriting of another work; in music, a reprise is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the...

 the forms of the 18th century genre of the Bildungsroman

Bildungsroman

In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...

(formation novel) and Künstlerroman

Künstlerroman

A Künstlerroman , meaning "artist's novel" in German, is a narrative about an artist's growth to maturity. It may be classified as a specific sub-genre of Bildungsroman; such a work, usually a novel, tends to depict the conflicts of a sensitive youth against the values of a bourgeois society of his...

(novel on the formation of an artist), and in particular Fielding's Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

, Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...

's three epistolary novels. The narrative presents Ebenezer as a Künstlerroman hero. The novel is also a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of the picaresque genre, in particular of Tristram Shandy and Tom Jones

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. First published on 28 February 1749, Tom Jones is among the earliest English prose works describable as a novel...

.

The novel also rewrites the tale of John Smith

John Smith of Jamestown

Captain John Smith Admiral of New England was an English soldier, explorer, and author. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Bathory, Prince of Transylvania and friend Mózes Székely...

 and Pocahantas, presenting Smith as a boastful and bawdy opportunist, whose narrative of his explorations in Virginia is portrayed as highly fictional and self-serving. This view is generally accepted by historians today.

In 1994, Barth said retrospectively that this novel marks his discovery of postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

: "Looking back, I am inclined to declare grandly that I needed to discover, or to be discovered by, Postmodernism."

Publication

The first edition was written during four years, and published by Doubleday in 1960, consisting of about 800 pages. Barth revisited the text for a new edition issue in 1967 by another publisher, dried off by 60 pages. In 1987, the revised edition was reissued by the original publisher, in the Doubleday Anchor Edition series, with an added foreword.

The novel has been translated to several languages, including Italian, Japanese and others. TIME included it in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

External links

• The Sot-Weed Factor, free ebook version of the first edition (1960) available at archive.org, scanned by Universal Digital Library