University of Virginia Library

II

To those who have read it, The Triumph of Infidelity has been many different things: an attack on Voltaire and Hume, or their influences; an attack on deism and democracy; a general defense of Christianity, or Calvinist orthodoxy; the outpouring of personal abuse. Arthur H. Quinn, The Literature of the American People (1951), pp. 186 f., represents the critics who find a variety of purposes in the poem, which he describes as "a satiric attack in verse upon the divine who does not believe in Hell; the Roman Catholic Church; modern philosophy; the Chinese and other institutions, via Satan, whose praise, of course, condemns them. It is also a defence of . . . Calvinistic theology." Even Leon Howard, who has read the poem more carefully than any of the others, is unsure of Dwight's intention: "There may be some doubt as to whether Dwight originally intended to satirize deism and materialism . . . and turned to heterodox Calvinists only for lack of better material or whether he planned a New Divinity satire from the beginning and wrote the first three-fifths of the poem merely as an introduction" (The Connecticut Wits [1943], p. 215).

One may attempt to resolve the "some doubt." I think the critics have erred in several ways: in their failure to appreciate what humor there is in the poem, in their failure to recognize Dwight's use of a variety of satirical techniques, even in their failure to find the real weaknesses of the poem. But

they have erred most often, it seems to me, in the matter of Dwight's purpose. The poem attacks, purely and simply, the liberal "Old Light" theology that Dwight hated, and it suggests, with an indirection that is (in Dwight's plan, if not in his fulfillment) the very essence of satire, the possible consequences of a wide acceptance of such doctrine. From beginning to end the various elements in the poem work toward this single satiric purpose.

The poem's application to America is established in the opening lines (1-16), which describe Satan's arrival in this country. The reader will learn, as the poem unfolds, that Satan makes such personal visits only when his cause, "infidelity," is seriously endangered: thus, for example, he had earlier gone to Scotland to write Hume's works and to France to inspire Voltaire (237-306). The specific reason for his American visit appears still later (353-392): Jonathan Edwards is too great an adversary against materialism and deism, and something extraordinary must be done "to plunge the New World in the gulph of sin" (406). The reason for Satan's special desire, however, is implied at the beginning of the poem, in the first description of America (11-14):

The idea that America was destined to be the scene of "new Edens" of freedom, virtue, and godliness was as old as the first generation of colonists, but no less strong for the "revived Puritan" Dwight in the eighteenth century. To him it was perfectly logical for Satan to consider a victory over America the greatest possible triumph of infidelity.

Satan does not act at once, but instead makes a long speech (17-452) on the history of infidelity up to the present day. Dwight included this section for three good reasons. First, he won the immediate sympathy of his reader. In condemning the pre-Reformation Catholics (73-98), the "fashionable" deism of Restoration England (133-182), and Hume and Voltaire (237-306), and in praising the early rise of Christianity (23-50) and the Protestant Reformation (99-132), he voiced sentiments that both the Old and New Divinity adherents could approve. Second, by reviewing the entire history of Christianity, he considerably increased the importance of his own subject, as Leon Howard suggests (p. 215). Satan's battle for the aggregate soul of America is made the supreme test of his power. Finally, the poet established a large background of evil with which he could associate his real object of satire, the Old Divinity men. The parallel that he subsequently draws between Satan's operations in the New World and his previous work in the Old provides the core of the poem's satire.

This large parallel can be illustrated by a brief outline of the remainder of the poem. With European infidelity well established, and the American

campaign very much in need of a boost, Satan turns to what has been the chief business of his visit ever since the opening of the poem, and hits upon a "glorious project," the "best, / That ever Satan's bright invention blest" (409 f.). His project is the promulgation of the doctrine of universal salvation, and his mouthpiece is the Reverend Charles Chauncy of Boston. Satan ends his speech, effects his plan, and Chauncy proclaims the doctrine (453-470). The project is immediately successful, and Dwight provides a long series of "characters" or satirical portraits, some of real persons, some of types, to show what happens when the fear of an eternal hell is removed (471-638). For a final triumph, Satan has Chauncy deliver a sermon fully expounding the Old Divinity theology (639-734). With this second blast all truth and virtue are defeated, sin and error reign, and even the "decent christian" grows liberal; infidelity has triumphed completely (735-778).

Two important points to be observed are these. First, Chauncy has, with Hume and Voltaire, now become one of the three principal agents of Satan. Satan's visit to America, his inspiration of Chauncy, and the results of the new philosophy exactly parallel his operations upon the Scottish and French philosophers. Chauncy's case differs from the earlier infidels' only in that the American victory, more desirable and harder won, is the greatest success of all, just as Chauncy is the greatest of Satan's tools. Second, it should be emphasized that the long series of portraits that follows Chauncy's first announcement of Satan's doctrine are, however abusive, in every instance clearly concerned with illustrating the effects of that announcement.

Altogether 620 lines of the poem are related to Chauncy and the American triumph of infidelity, as follows: description or speech of Chauncy, 120 lines; the results of his collaboration with Satan, 234 lines; the European infidels who function for Satan in the same manner as Chauncy, 70 lines; Satan's other forces with whom Chauncy is shown to be allied, 106 lines; the destiny of America and the situation necessitating Satan's personal visit, 90 lines. All but a handful of the remaining 158 lines are concerned with structurally necessary accounts of the early Christians and the European opponents of infidelity. The whole poem, then, can be seen as a series of descriptions and speeches centered on one major event, America's acceptance of infidelity through the efforts of Satan and Chauncy. And since the latter was dead in 1788 (appropriately Dwight designated a time for the poem before the end of the Revolutionary War), the chief target of satire is not the particular man, but what he represented, the theological liberalism that worried Dwight by its growing popularity.[8]

Leon Howard (p. 212) believes that the poem was "misnamed in an excess of irony," because Satan "was shown, at the close, fleeing in confusion

rather than advancing in triumph." The last six lines (773-778) of the A version read: The point is, however, that infidelity has also triumphed over Satan. From the first of the poem, he has desired "The final victory o'er my struggling foes" (24), and now, with supreme success at hand on the American battlefield, it turns out that he has conquered not a single virtuous man. Confirmed in the Calvinist belief in the depravity of man, Dwight had written a few lines above (761 f.), "The decent christian threw his mask aside, / And smil'd, to see the path of heaven so wide," implying that even the most virtuous are only superficially good, ready to uncover their wickedness at the slightest suggestion. What surprises Satan, then, is that he has been wasting his time, that his "final victory" is, in effect, a pushover, because the enemy has all along been on his side, and there was "no friend of virtue" to conquer (776). Recourse to the second edition for a variant in typography that must be attributed to the author illuminates Dwight's final intention and explains the meaning of his title. To make clearer the reason for Satan's ultimate dismay, to emphasize the hollowness of his victory, the B text prints line 776 thus: "And to his cause no Friend of Virtue won."[9] Admittedly the theological reasoning at this point is a little shaky, but the explanation would seem to be that, for Dwight, the natural susceptibility of men toward sinful behavior made the liberal Old Divinity doctrine all the more dangerous.