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 ====== The Hermethenean (The Interpreter) ======
-//The Hermethenean// was a short-lived monthly literary magazine published by the [[club_of_the_incogniti|Club of the Incogniti]], one of [[washington_college|Washington College’s]] first secret societies. Reported to be the first undergraduate publication in the United States, the first and only volume of the literary magazine appeared in six issues between October 1833 and March 1834. At thirty-two pages per issue, the magazine was a notable success for its literary merits, with an impressive range of works of fiction, opinion, poetry, and more. While the first issue is entirely comprised of student work, later issues in the volume did include contributions from members of the community. An editor’s note concluding the sixth issue announces forthcoming work and patronage from prominent poet Lydia Sigourney. Unfortunately, the magazine’s run did not extend beyond this sixth and final issue, and the prospectus drawn up for future publication was never fulfilled.
+//The Hermethenean// was a short-lived monthly literary magazine published by the [[club_of_the_incogniti|Club of the Incogniti]], one of [[washington_college|Washington College’s]] (now Trinity College) first [[secret_societies|secret societies]]. Reported to be the first undergraduate publication in the United States, the first and only volume of the literary magazine appeared in six issues between October 1833 and March 1834. At thirty-two pages per issue, the magazine was a notable success for its literary merits, with an impressive range of works of fiction, opinion, poetry, and more. While the first issue is entirely comprised of student work, later issues in the volume did include contributions from members of the community. An editor’s note concluding the sixth issue announced forthcoming work and patronage from prominent poet Lydia Sigourney. Unfortunately, the magazine’s run did not extend beyond this sixth and final issue, and the prospectus drawn up for future publication was never fulfilled.
-The first issue of the magazine is comprised of several works of historical fiction, a genre that was particularly popular at that time, as well as personal narratives of college life, poems, an opinion piece, and a section of brief book reviews. Across all the works in the first issue, there is a unified concern with the practical value of liberal education. An opinion essay titled “Habits of Literary Men” by David Lambert opens the issue with emphatic warnings against allowing intellectual pursuits to distract from imminent, daily life. “The literary man in his conversation with his books is too often inclined to indulge in reverie,” Lambert writes, “While his eyes are running over the pages of an author, his mind is wandering among the unreal objects of his shadowy creation” and “the world’s harsh discord is forgotten.” The physical decrepitude of the student who neglects his bodily health while lost in reverie is later described in a personal narrative by pseudonymous author “Macer,” who tells a sorrowful account of his irremediable physical frailty and its repercussions on his love life.
-The examination of the character traits of influential men is taken up with zeal by several of the first contributing authors to //The Hermethenean//. The assassination of King Henry the IV of France by François Ravaillac is framed as a warning fable against “fanaticism and superstition” in a dark historical fiction vignette. Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, and portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, are heralded for retaining a “diligent attention and strict discipline of mind” amid societal unrest, “civil commotions, and the ‘orgies of Bacchus.’” In contrast to these didactic pieces stand the four poems, all anonymously authored, which each indulge in their own fanciful imagery and imaginative associations in precisely the manner that other contributors warn against. Among the pieces included in the first issue, there is a lively conversation about what makes a college education valuable. This would continue to be an important thematic thread throughout subsequent issues of //The Hermethenean//.
-The first issue is concluded with an illustrious work introducing the publication to the public, titled “The Coming Out.” The anonymous editor identifies the “main object” of the magazine is sheer amusement, and that the choice of the contributors to remain anonymous is in service to this aim. The introductory piece describes the college setting in which the publication came to be, as well as a poetic portrait of Washington College’s geographical situation within the wider Connecticut River Valley and the accelerating industrial developments that were drastically changing the natural landscape.
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 ===== Sources =====
-Trinity College in the Twentieth Century by Peter and Anne Knapp, 2000, p. 18.
+[[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.39923395|Trinity College in the Twentieth Century]] (2000) by Peter and Anne Knapp, p. 18.
-History of Trinity College, 1967 by Glenn Weaver, p. 57.
+[[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/w_books/4/|History of Trinity College]] (1967) by Glenn Weaver, p. 57.
 [[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.31659976|The Trinity Tablet]], 1868-07.