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LITR 5431 Seminar in American Literature:
Romanticism lecture notes |
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 Memorial to historic Uncas (1588-1683), ally of English in King Philip's War (1675-6); monument raised 1833, 1842 on Mohegan burial ground in present Norwich, Connecticut |
Plays new cultural riffs on gothic color scheme of light and dark +- red, yellow
| gothic color scheme |
light |
dark |
red/yellow |
| Western Civilization moral metaphysics |
white as innocence, purity |
black or darkness as evil, decay |
blood? anger? |
| races of early North America |
white people (European Americans); Alice, Duncan Heyward, Hawkeye |
black people (African Americans) |
the "red man" (American
Indians); |
fates of characters, resolutions re "couples" + message about ethnicity and gender in USA
couples:
Cora and Uncas
Heyward and Alice
Hawkeye and Chingachgook (read Lawrence handout) inter-racial buddies
+ Magua, David Gamut
Cooper as classic / popular 17.7-9; terrorist?
Sleepy Hollow 33, 46
Captivity of Mary Rowlandson 1.1a
Mohicans
6.4 Uncas as statue, uncorrupted
13.36 children of the woods
17.11 more than 2000 raving savages, drinking blood (cf. sentimental stereotypes)
17.16 Gamut interprets as "jubilee of devils"
American Indian texts:
1.What
alternative realities
or narratives emerge from
texts representing repressed or marginalized voices?
2.
Cherokee Memorials
[3] opposite of transcendence-narrative of romance
[4] Brothers
relinquish our possessions
5] The land on which we stand, we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common father in heaven.
[6] the faith and pledge of the U. States, repeated over and over again, in treaties made at various times. By these treaties our rights as a separate people are distinctly acknowledged
These governments perfectly understood our rights—our right to the country, and our right to self government.
[7] we cannot consent to abandon it, for another far inferior, and which holds out to us no inducements.
divest them of their liberty and country, and you sink them in degradation, and put a check, if not a final stop, to their present progress in the arts of civilized life, and in the knowledge of the Christian religion.
10 preserve us from ruin and extinction.
12 whether the power of self Government abided in the Cherokee Nation at the discovery of America, three hundred and thirty seven years ago, and whether it was in any manner effected or destroyed by the Charters of European Potentates?
13 how our right to self Government was effected and destroyed, by the Declaration of Independence
14 always written by the commissioners on the part of the United States, for obvious reason, as the Cherokees were unacquainted with letters
15 The Constitution of the United States, (article 6) contains these words; "all Treaties made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land," and the "Judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the laws or constitution of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." The sacredness of Treaties made under the authority of the United States are paramount and Supreme, stronger than the laws and constitution of any state.
20 This resort to us is a last one, and nothing short of the threatening evils and dangers that beset us could have forced it upon the Nation. But it is a right we surely have
Apess, Looking Glass
1 God who is the maker and preserver both of the white man and the Indian, whose abilities are the same, and who are to be judged by one God, who will show no favor to outward appearances
2 The most mean, abject, miserable race of beings in the world—a complete place of prodigality and prostitution.
3 the females are left without protection, and are seduced by white men, and are finally left to be common prostitutes for them, and to be destroyed by that burning, fiery curse, that has swept millions, both of red and white men, into the grave with sorrow and disgrace—Rum.
3 their most sensible and active men are absent at sea
3 Their land is in common stock, and they have nothing to make them enterprising.
4 go upon Indian lands and cut and carry off their most valuable timber,
5-6 [If you think so well of us, why not treat us as though you do]
6 Perhaps some unholy, unprincipled men would cry out, the skin was not good enough; but stop friends—I am not talking about the skin, but about principles.
8 same unfeeling, self-esteemed characters pretend to take the skin as a pretext to keep us from our unalienable and lawful rights? I would ask you if you would like to be disfranchised from all your rights, merely because your skin is white, and for no other crime? I'll venture to say, these very characters who hold the skin to be such a barrier in the way, would be the first to cry out, injustice! awful injustice!
9
If black or
red skins, or any other skin of color is disgraceful to God, it appears that he
[Jehovah / God / Creator] has disgraced himself a great deal—for he has made
fifteen colored people to one white, and placed them here upon this earth.
[14] Did you ever hear or read of Christ teaching his disciples that they ought to despise one because his skin was different from theirs? Jesus Christ being a Jew, and those of his Apostles certainly were not whites
[18] Perhaps you will say that if we admit you to all of these privileges you will want more. I expect that I can guess what that is—Why, say you, there would be intermarriages. How that would be I am not able to say—and if it should be, it would be nothing strange or new to me; for I can assure you that I know a great many that have intermarried, both of the whites and the Indians—and many are their sons and daughters—
19 Now if the Lord Jesus Christ, who is counted by all to be a Jew, and it is well known that the Jews are a colored people, especially those living in the East, where Christ was born—and if he should appear amongst us, would he not be shut out of doors by many, very quickly? and by those too, who profess religion?
Mohicans
1.4 pictorial
1.6 historical fiction
1.7 George Washington
1.8 captivity narrative cf. RVW 48
1.8-1.9 shift from history to fiction > 1.13 two females [+ cinematic]
1.17 Indian runner + Byronic marker
1.19 two females
1.21 light-dark + sublime > 2.12
2.2 romantic rhetoric in dialogue
2.3 plot outrage
2.5 preview of Magua's past
2.12 skin is dark
2.13 dark and tangled pathway [wilderness gothic]
2.21 secret path
2.29 cf. Ichabod and forest
2.30 suspense + gothic forest
Historic Uncas in Of Plymouth Plantation 28.7
5.8 arches of the forest
6.3 romantic wildness
6.4 Uncas as statue, uncorrupted
6.7 the shade of his skin? > 6.8 embarrassed silence
6.12 spectral looking figure
6.16 Uncas attendant
6.37 cry in night
7.5 white man without a cross
7.12 horrid cry a horse gives
8.25 50 demons, one Christian soul
8.30 we are men without a cross
8.36 I should die as becomes my color
8.37 Why die at all?
8.43 reason + Christianity
8.50 Uncas will stay
8.51 go to my father
9.3-4 Alice & Magua
Ch 11 Magua as Byronic hero: 11.2 sat apart, deepest thought; 11.9 joy/malignancy passion; 11.21 supposed injuries; 11.30 scars
11.20 Cora repulsed
11.20 a chief, happy; fire-water
11.23 whose shades of countenance may resemble mine?
11.26-28 justice!
11.42 live in his wigwam forever
11.65 you stand between me and my God
11.74 [death before dishonor]
12.2 hand to hand
Uncas as action hero: 12.3, 12.7, 12.9
12.16 Uncas denies habits, nature
12.23 Book!
12.26 faith from the lights of nature
13.5 blockhouse
13.10 the son listening to the relation of the father
13.15 a fountain of crystal
13.19 dreaming a knight of ancient chivalry
13.33 gothic lighting, deceptive shadow, arches of the forest
13.36 children of the woods
13.43 gothic exit
16.1-5 domestic scene, Cora's sensitivity
16.29-31 Scotland, Caribbean, Cora's mother
16.34 a prejudice unworthy of my reason . . . deeply rooted
16.35 enriched by the marriage
16.36 Alice a woman without a cross
17.5 cinematic landscape; cf. spectacle & sublime (Jamie)
17.6-7 Cora's viewpoint
17.6 a hundred savages appeared as if by magic + Magua
17.6 women and children as alarmed and fluttering birds
17.7 tore the screaming infant from her arms
17.9 dashed the head of the infant against a rock
17.10 Magua, whoop
17.11 more than 2000 raving savages, drinking blood (cf. sentimental stereotypes)
17.13 foregrounding Munro, Magua, sisters
17.15 Alice had dropped senseless to the earth
17.16 Gamut interprets as "jubilee of devils"
17.18 dusky figures enacting their hellish rites
17.25 will the dark-hair go to his tribe?
29.1 an expression difficult to define
29.2 The Spirit that made men colored them differently; slave ships
29.4 pre-contact utopia
29.19 Cora rushes
29.21 like a beauteous and breathing model of her sex, looking up in his faded but majestic countenance, with a species of holy reverence
29.23 A woman. One of a hated race.
29.34 the Lenape were masters of the world
29.36 Is Tamenund a father?
29.39 maze of dark, glossy tresses
29.40 the pale faces are a proud and hungry race. I know that they claim not only to have the earth, but that the meanest of their color is better than the Sachems [chiefs] of the red man.
29.41 Cora manages for Uncas to speak
30.2 Uncas's grace
30.9 Does Tamenund dream? Have the winters gone backward? Will summer come again
30.17 small tortoise, beautifully tattooed
30.22 Uncas, the child of Uncas
30.27 two warriors of the unchanged race
30.30 charm of figurative language
30.88 our skins are not altogether of a color, and our gifts are somewhat different. Tell the Sagamore I never lost sight of him in my greatest trouble; and, as for you, think of me sometimes when on a lucky trail, and depend on it, boy, whether there be one heaven or two, there is a path in the other world by which honest men may come together again.
[30.92]
The maiden drew back in lofty womanly reserve, and her dark eye kindled, while
the rich blood shot, like the passing brightness of the sun, into her very
temples, at the indignity.
30.94 Cora on Alice: correspondence + color code + unblemished
32.2 unbroken forest, no evident track of man, but
32.20 gothic trees?
32.39 scalping
32.40 dark and dense forest
32.43 warriors of my own color
32.48 Uncas at head of a hundred warriors
32.49 Magua conspicuous
32.51 the young Mohican braved the dangerous fire of his enemies, and soon compelled them to a flight as swift as his own headlong speed
32.53 gothic cave
32.54 white robe fluttering
32.57 Cora! Cora!
32.59 the way was rugged, broken
32.61 good action picture
32.64 I will go no further!
32.68 Cora diverts, changes dialog
32.69 choose!
32.73 a cry so fierce, wild, joyous
33.1 mourners, black and murky atmosphere, ravens
33.13 thrillingly soft and wailing
33.15 Cora and Uncas, will of the Great Spirit
33.16 a hunter would be her companion [transcendence]
33.16 That she [Cora] was of a blood purer and richer than the rest of her nation, any eye might have seen; that she was equal to the dangers and daring of a life in the woods, her conduct had proved
33.17 Alice less excellent
33.19 Scout shook his head
33.31 the heaven of their color
33.35 without distinction of sex, rank, color
33.41 the settlements of the pale faces
33.45 The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to journey in the same path. I have no kin, and I may also say, like you, no people.
