According to Wikipedia: "Ebenezer Cooke (ca. 1665 ca. 1732), a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr” (1708). He has been fictionalized by John Barth as the comically innocent protagonist of The Sot-Weed Factor, a novel in which a series of fantastic misadventures leads Cooke to write his poem. As Barth explained, The SotWeed Factor began with the title and, of course, Ebenezer Cooke's original p...

According to Wikipedia: "Ebenezer Cooke (ca. 1665 – ca. 1732), a London-born poet, wrote what some scholars consider the first American satire: “The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr” (1708). He has been fictionalized by John Barth as the comically innocent protagonist of The Sot-Weed Factor, a novel in which a series of fantastic misadventures leads Cooke to write his poem. As Barth explained, The Sot–Weed Factor began with the title and, of course, Ebenezer Cooke's origina...