LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Student Presentation on Reading Selections 2006

Monday 16 October: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, N 812-834. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life . . . , N 939-973.

selection reader / discussion leader: Tish Wallace

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”

-Harriet Jacobs

 Objective 1a Romantic Spirit or Ideology:

• To identify and criticize ideas and attitudes associated with Romanticism, such as desire and loss, rebellion, nostalgia, idealism, the gothic, the sublime, the individual in nature or separate from the masses.
• The Romantic impulse may be as simple as a desire for anything besides
  “the here and now” – or “reality”; thus the quest or journey of the romance narrative involves crossing physical borders or transgressing social or psychological boundaries in order to attain or regain some transcendent goal or dream.

Objective 2 America as Romanticism:

• To acknowledge the co-emergence and convergence of “America” and “Romanticism.”  European Romanticism begins near the time of the American Revolution, and Romanticism and the American nation develop ideas of individualism, sentimental nature, rebellion, and equality in parallel.
• American Romanticism exposes competing or complementary dimensions of the American identity: …moral, spiritual, idealistic mission.

Passage 1:

“He (Mr. Sands) was a man of more generosity and feeling than my master, and I thought my freedom could be easily obtained from him.  The crisis of my fate now came so near that I was desperate.  I shuddered to think of being the mother of children that should be owned by my old tyrant.  I knew that as soon as a new fancy took him, his victims were sold far off to get rid of them; especially if they had children.  I had seen several women sold, with his babies at the breast.  He never allowed his offspring by slaves to remain long in sight of himself and his wife.  Of a man who was not my master I could ask to have my children well supported; and in this case, I felt confident I should obtain the boon.  I also felt quite sure that they would be made free.  With all these thoughts revolving in my mind, and seeing no other way of escaping the doom I so much dreaded, I made a headlong plunge” (822).

Passage 2:

“Dear Daughter: I cannot hope to see you again on earth; but I pray to God to unite us above, where pain will no more rack this feeble body of mine; where sorrow and parting from my children will be no more.  God has promised these things if we are faithful unto the end.  My age and feeble health deprive me of going to church now; but God is with me here at home.  Thank your brother for his kindness.  Give much love to him, and tell him to remember the Creator in the days of his youth, and strive to meet me in the Father’s kingdom.  Love to Ellen and Benjamin.  Don’t neglect him.  Tell him for me, to be a good boy.  Strive, my child, to train them for God’s children.  May he protect and provide for you, is the prayer of your loving old mother” (829).

Discussion Questions:

1. How does Jacobs exemplify transcendence in these two passages?

2. How are individualism, sentimental nature, rebellion, and equality handled by Jacobs in portraying her incidents?

3. What competing dimensions of the American identity were exposed? How does moral / spiritual mission fit in with this theory?