M'Fingal

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M'Fingal

M'FINGAL. Published in 1782, M'Fingal is the eponymous name of the pseudo-Scottish poet in the mock epic poem by John Trumbull. Written in the satiric style of the seventeenth-century English versifier Samuel Butler, the author of Hudibras, this crude but effective epigrammatic form was a popular vehicle in America for political commentary at the time of the Revolution. Condemned in Britain, the poem was very popular in the United States in celebrating the struggle for independence.

SEE ALSO Salem, Massachusetts; Trumbull, John (the poet).

                              revised by Harold E. Selesky

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