© 2024 South Carolina Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

“R” is Rugeley, Rowland

South Carolina from A to Z logo

  “R” is Rugeley, Rowland [1738-1776]. Author. Born in England, Ruguley published his first work Miscellaneous Poems: Translations from La Fontaine and Others in 1763. Two years later he immigrated to South Carolina with the promise of help from Governor Montagu. Montagu awarded Ruguley the office of register and later appointed him to the Royal Council. In 1774, he published in Charleston The Story of Aenas and Dido: Burlesqu’d from the Fourth Book of the Aenid of Virgil. This work, which has been called the first classical burlesque written in America, has a lengthy preface satirizing the pretensions of poets in the New World, witty footnotes in Latin, and a wildly comic spirit. In his writings, Rowland Ruguley showed himself to be comfortable with neoclassical forms and a content that mixes the classical with the contemporary.

Stay Connected
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.