In the opening years of the nineteenth century, Joel Barlow designed his epic poem, The Columbiad (1807), with this end in view: to "encourage and strengthen" republican institutions in the new nation in order ultimately to improve "the condition of human nature." Barlow's purpose was both "moral and political"--and poetical, for he wrote that "this is the moment in America to ... implant ... true and useful ideas of glory" and "give direction to poetry, painting, and the other fine arts." It seems ironic that Barlow, who worked to become the American Homer, is now esteemed chiefly for two shorter poems, The Hasty-Pudding (1796), a nostalgic recollection of his Connecticut boyhood, and Advice to a Raven in Russia (written in 1812, published 1938), an antiwar poem on Napoleon's retreat from Russia. It appears additionally ironic that Barlow, a one-time farm boy turned "politician of the world," should be relegated, in collections of earlier...