American Minority Literature: Terms and Themes

Modernity & Tradition

Tradition and modernity are anthropological descriptions for divergent relations to time, society, and the larger world.

These terms are useful for analysis, and even average people can use them in commonly accepted ways, but don't get too hung up on either-or judgments. In fact, nearly every person or society is a mix of traditional and modern.

In brief, tradition is a way of life modeled on the past. Do as your parents did. Observe precedent.

In modernity, life opens to the future rather than the past.

Spoken cultures are traditional; literate cultures are modern.

Traditional cultures favor extended families, smaller rural communities; modern cultures are more oriented toward individuals or nuclear families in cities full of strangers.

Examples

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

After threatening me thus, he gave me a very large dose of salts, telling me that I might remain in St. Michael's that night, (it being quite late,) but that I must be off back to Mr. Covey's early in the morning; and that if I did not, he would "get hold of me," which meant that he would whip me. I remained all night, and, according to his orders, I started off to Covey's in the morning, (Saturday morning,) wearied in body and broken in spirit. I got no supper that night, or breakfast that morning. I reached Covey's about nine o'clock; and just as I was getting over the fence that divided Mrs. Kemp's fields from ours, out ran Covey with his cowskin, to give me another whipping. Before he could reach me, I succeeded in getting to the cornfield; and as the corn was very high, it afforded me the means of hiding. He seemed very angry, and searched for me a long time. My behavior was altogether unaccountable. He finally gave up the chase, thinking, I suppose, that I must come home for something to eat; he would give himself no further trouble in looking for me. I spent that day mostly in the woods, having the alternative before me,--to go home and be whipped to death, or stay in the woods and be starved to death.

That night, I fell in with Sandy Jenkins, a slave with whom I was somewhat acquainted. Sandy had a free wife who lived about four miles from Mr. Covey's; and it being Saturday, he was on his way to see her. I told him my circumstances, and he very kindly invited me to go home with him. I went home with him, and talked this whole matter over, and got his advice as to what course it was best for me to pursue. I found Sandy an old adviser. He told me, with great solemnity, I must go back to Covey; but that before I went, I must go with him into another part of the woods, where there was a certain root, which, if I would take some of it with me, carrying it always on my right side, would render it impossible for Mr. Covey, or any other white man, to whip me. He said he had carried it for years; and since he had done so, he had never received a blow, and never expected to while he carried it. I at first rejected the idea, that the simple carrying of a root in my pocket would have any such effect as he had said, and was not disposed to take it; but Sandy impressed the necessity with much earnestness, telling me it could do no harm, if it did no good. To please him, I at length took the root, and, according to his direction, carried it upon my right side.

This was Sunday morning. I immediately started for home; and upon entering the yard gate, out came Mr. Covey on his way to meeting. He spoke to me very kindly, bade me drive the pigs from a lot near by, and passed on towards the church. Now, this singular conduct of Mr. Covey really made me begin to think that there was something in the ROOT which Sandy had given me; and had it been on any other day than Sunday, I could have attributed the conduct to no other cause than the influence of that root; and as it was, I was half inclined to think the "root" to be something more than I at first had taken it to be.

All went well till Monday morning. On this morning, the virtue of the ROOT was fully tested. . . .  [from ch. XI]

Later note on Sandy Jenkins: This is the same man who gave me the roots to prevent my being whipped by Mr. Covey. He was "a clever soul." We used frequently to talk about the fight with Covey, and as often as we did so, he would claim my success as the result of the roots which he gave me. This superstition is very common among the more ignorant slaves. A slave seldom dies but that his death is attributed to trickery. [also from ch. XI]

Guadalupe story

modernization = "change" vs. "traditional values"

Ongoing revolution in values and material life that began in Ancient Greece and was reborn in Renaissance Europe and the Enlightenment.

Modernization is a sociological concept involving many aspects of human and natural life:

human equality (in opportunity or possibility if not in fact)

secularization

urbanization (farms > city)

rise of middle class

nationalism (i. e., identification of a person as "an American" rather than a member of a tribe, family, or state)

authority of tradition is replaced by authority of empirical science and observable human behavior

pace of change constantly accelerates, with occasional pauses (e. g., the 1950s)

lifespans lengthen; population increases

in most material terms, modern life offers a better standard of living than the past did

reactions against modernization include fundamentalism, "family values," nostalgia for earlier times

Standard contrast with "modern" is "traditional"--modernity threatens tradition; it disrupts and unsettles older ways of life

Modernity and change are confusing, disorienting--desire for simplicity of past (which wasn't really simple, just familiar)

> popularity of occult or supernatural + conspiracy during rapid change: people want to understand in familiar, personal terms

"Modernization" is relevant to study of the American Renaissance because 

The American Renaissance is the period when Americans first began moving to cities in large numbers and experiencing the other changes listed above on a large scale.

Some literature of the period shows changes of intellect, lifestyle, and nature that resulted and how people adjusted. (Literature as engagement)

Much "Romantic" literature (such as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and The Last of the Mohicans or The Scarlet Letter) is set in an earlier or more rural time and place.