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Early American Literature lecture notes |
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Woolman, Equiano, Occom
midterms
thanks for working out submissions--still a tough semester
emails went out Thursday (reply)
best option: review, confer in person, email, phone
everyone learns through trial and error, two steps forward, one back
but one-on-one tutoring can leap forward
don't miss, but I learn something too
number observed mis-instruction of early America by schools, but . . .
not necessarily true, just incomplete
truth, knowledge evolve
grateful to earlier teachers, classes for giving you anything to think with
toughest students are those who start with nothing, from scratch
Who's in, who's out
universal ideals, all men created equal
but human history, human nature
problems in freedom, free enterprise
run wild
oppress others
challenges of America
freedom
capitalism
no established religion
review Founders
2.3 local / tribal culture [kidnappers]
A government of laws, and not of men.
Show 4328 slave narratives
Diverse readings, pieces of American identity and American literature being put together through writing
Difficulty of telling one story with which everyone can identify (In other words, if parts or pieces fit into a story, students or audience will comprehend.)
dialectic can create a story
Decline
Genesis story--once united with God and / or nature > sin > humanity now fallen, separate, exiles, wanderers, laborers on the earth
Pilgrims: America as holy commonwealth, Americans as God's chosen people, blessed by God > witches, wealth, slackness > Puritans become liberals
Founding Fathers: Super-wise, super-competent men of the Enlightenment / Age of Reason > rise of Jacksonian "common-man" democracy, intensification of slavery, Manifest Destiiny over Indian and Mexican lands, frontier life > big country, big government
Humans are inherently nostalgic, selective memory glorifies past.
But also possible to see
Question or challenge: Can the dominant culture trust the multiculture to manage its operating system successfully?
Is America a universal idea of equality, or is it an exclusively Western European phenomenon?
Make America Great Again. (i.e., we were once great but now we're not but can become great again by returning to earlier hierarchies, demographics)
or
Another historical challenge to which we'll adapt in order to progress to the next historical challenge?
The Declaration of Independence (and its echoes)
story of increasing inclusiveness of legal equality (at least)
Grammy Awards performance from Hamilton!
U.S. Constitution (ratified 1789)
who's left out? and how do they get in?
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative . . . (1789; first slave narrative)
literacy as advanced use of most human characteristic: language
people write their way into the social contract
aesthetics of religious literature: sublime; cf. Edwards
humans till time studied mostly lived in small communities
short lives, interdependence
capitalism as amoral, government separated from church > where does morality come from?
In both Equiano and Occom, note the connections between religion and literacy.
How does Equiano's writing in both style and content resemble the Founders and the Enlightenment. What qualities separate it from the Puritan style?
Equiano shows slavery as horrifying, but in contrast to most later, Romantic slave narratives, he mostly advocates its reform rather than its abolition. How is this attitude representative of Enlightenment thinking? Contrast Romanticism.
Americans who feel defensive about slavery often point to existence of slavery in Africa. What differences?
Why do most Literature majors like reading works such as those by Equiano or Occom more than texts by the Founders?
Reading Woolman's Journal is like reading the life of a saint. What pleasures or rewards? What benefits and risks of reading moral or pious literature in public schools?
14-15 silence, watch for pure opening
31 inward stillness
62 universalism, Thomas a Kempis
66 beyond family
76 magician episode; no use to the world
What kinds of moral quandaries does Woolman face that prevent simple yes-no moralism? [43]
35 deep-rooted customs, though wrong; + compromises of business
62 universalism, Thomas a Kempis
How does Woolman differ from the Enlightenment?
10 love of God > love for Creation
56 questioning improvements
How does Woolman recall Plain Style & preview Thoreau and Civil Disobedience, voluntary simplicity, etc.
22 cf. Thoreau voluntary simplicity
38 plain style
40a bounds to our desires
68 too much labor x plainness, things useful
71 solve social problems by becoming better people [Romantic?]
Woolman as preview of Crevecoeur
45 cf. Crevecoeur on South
88
So
great is the hurry in the spirit of this world, that in aiming to do business
quickly and to gain wealth, the creation at this day doth loudly groan. . . .
Occom
1 I was born a heathen (outside Christianity, outside universality?)
a wandering life [cf. Edgar Huntly]
minister from New London, blankets, school
a man who went about among the Indian Wigwams, and wherever he Could find the Indian Children, would make them read; but the Children Used to take Care to keep out of his way; —and he used to Catch me Some times and make me Say over my Letters
not one amongst us, that made a Profession of Christianity—Neither did we Cultivate our Land, nor kept any Sort of Creatures except Dogs, which we used in Hunting; and we Dwelt in wigwams
unacquainted with the English Tongue in general
2 Great Awakening
Common People all came frequently
[3] After I was awakened & converted, I went to all the meetings, I could come at; & continued under Trouble of Mind about 6 months; at which time I began to Learn the English Letters; got me a Primer, and used to go to my English Neighbours frequently for Assistance in Reading
4 began to read in New Testament > Wheelock
6 1>I
12 method in school
18 Indian handicrafts
19-20 “because I am an Indian”
Woolman notes
4 literacy
10 love of God > love for Creation
14-15 silence, watch for pure opening
22 cf. Thoreau voluntary simplicity
26 slaves, treatment varies > conversation
27 cf. Crevecoeur
31 inward stillness
35 deep-rooted customs, though wrong
38 plain style
40a bounds to our desires
45 cf. Crevecoeur on South
46 rationalizations of slavery + 48 biblical Cain, Ham
50 x-negro marriages
51 no contract
51 literacy for slaves + universality of God
56 questioning improvements
62 universalism, Thomas a Kempis
63 keeping down to that root from which our concern proceeded > sympathy
66 beyond family
68 too much labor x plainness, things useful
71 Indians in way of American Dream
71 solve social problems by becoming better people [Romantic?]
74 natives as well as negroes
76 magician episode; no use to the world
78 sailors, exampled
84 animal rights
Equiano notes
1.4 luxuries few (cf. Woolman); cf. plain style
1.7 beauty relative
1.9 one Creator
1.11, 1.12 cf. Jews > Amerinds
1.14 limiting the goodness of God [universalism]
2.3 local / tribal culture [kidnappers]
2.6 loss / sorrow
2.7 metal working
2.10 snakes in garden
2.12 different languages
2.12-13 sister and loss
2.14 money shells
2.14-15 old world slavery, extended family
2.17 different cultures, Western influence, change in women's status; no sacrifices or offerings (cf. patriarch 1.12)
2.19 slave ship, bad spirits
2.21 contrast Crevecoeur
2.22 technology as magic
2.23 x-Enlightened capitalism
2.27 assimilation to Af Am
3.3 voice, speech contrast Declaration, 1st Amendment
3.4 technology (watch)
3.7 learning English
3.15-16 church and literacy
3.16 talk to the books
3.19 limits on assimilation
4.1-2 literacy and religion
4.2 a Guide to the Indians
4.3-4 loss
4.5 written laws
4.5 dreams of freedom
4.6b talked too much English
5.3 West Indies slavery
5.7-8 wealth creation
5.10 depradations & reversal; white men on black women; black man and white prostitute
5.13 all men created equal; conditions change--slavery bad for whites too
6.3 capitalism
6.6-7 state of free negro
6.8 learning navigation
6.10 trading to buy freedom
6.11 navigation helps unexpectedly
6.14 price of freedom (not born)
6.17 Charlestown
7.1 natural wonder
7.2 Quakers
7.2b Great Awakening
7.4a-b contract, 7.7 written manumission
8.4 law
8.6 I talked too good English
10.1b primitive Christians; cf. Pilgrims
10.2 Conversion of an Indian
10.4 cf. Woolman on sailors
10.6 an unsealed book (literacy?)
12.3 common nature
12.3 light, liberty, science
12.8 economic interests against slavery, grow market
Overall Discussion Question: Continuing Obj. 3 "which America to teach," what is gained or lost by reading "outsiders" to the nation's founding and its dominant culture? What literary power or prestige is gained? What do we learn about North American culture, both good and bad? (e.g., a history of exclusion and oppression still with us today, but also ideals and mechanisms for equality and progress?). How may attention to "outsiders" be a feature or value of Romanticism?
see also question 5
1. In both Equiano and Occom, note connections between religion and literacy (and literacy as a prerequisite for enlightened self-government—see Texas Declaration, para. 11). If religion is no longer part of the government (or the economics of capitalism), where does religion relocate and assert its power?
3.15-16 church and literacy
4.1-2 literacy and religion
4.5 written laws
2. How does Equiano's writing in both style and content offer an African American voice and yet resemble the Founders and the Enlightenment? What qualities reconnect to the religious appeals of the Puritans or of evangelical culture?
Epistle dedicatory: the hope of becoming an instrument towards the relief of his suffering countrymen
1.9 one Creator
1.14 limiting the goodness of God [universalism]
2.23 x-Enlightened capitalism
3. Equiano shows slavery as horrifying, but in contrast to most later, Romantic slave narratives, he mostly advocates its reform rather than its abolition. How is this attitude representative of Enlightenment thinking? Contrast Romanticism.
4. Americans who feel defensive about slavery often point to the existence of slavery in Africa. What similairites and differences between traditional African slavery and modern American slavery?
2.14-15 old world slavery, extended family
5. Why do most Literature majors like reading works such as those by Equiano or Occom more than texts by the Founders? How do their lives or writings anticipate Romanticism?
6. Reading Woolman's Journal is like reading the life of a saint. What pleasures or rewards? What benefits and risks of reading moral or pious literature in public schools? What kinds of moral quandaries does Woolman face that prevent simple yes-no moralism? [43] How does Woolman differ from the Enlightenment? In what ways is he a potentially a Romantic figure, or not?
6a. What source for morality in a nation without established religion?
individual
deliberation, conversation
civil disobedience
3.19 limits on assimilation
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