Summer 2010 - Major American Writers 19th Century
The latter part of summer 2010, I took AML 4311. We covered a good amount of ground, or rather touched on it, in this class. We read writings from Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Poe, Whitman, Douglass, and Henry James, though I think Twain may have been omitted for lack of time. I wish Ambrose Bierce had been included, but lamentably he doesn't seem to be quite as canonical a figure in American literature as the others, though arguably he's as important in his own way. Anyway, the problem was, this professor was unlike any teacher I've had since middle school, which is what she evoked for me. Her approach to the material was intellectually stultifying, consisting of reciting a short biography of the writer in a very rote, unengaged way, and talking about themes that would be familiar to anyone with even cursory knowledge of the author in question. I don't recall her being much better with class discussions. She was a nice woman, to be clear, but her approach was emphatically "old-school" in a way I didn't know existed in upper level literature classes. Her exams asked us to regurgitate these facts, and even the essays encouraged a very conventional sort of rehearsing of "what we learned," any deviation from which was met with pedantic, unhelpful comments about what she considered to be breaking her narrow rules of composition. In spite of all this, I got an A- in the class.
The best thing I wrote for this class I have already posted, but two years ago, so I will link to it: Anthropocentrism in Emerson's Nature. I have a few other things from the class to post, though: a short response essay on Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown," a couple of admittedly weak short exam essays on Thoreau and Douglass, and perhaps most interesting, two scrapped introductions to the paper I never wrote on Melville's excellent story "Benito Cereno." I wish I would have been able to write a whole paper on this story (as the 2011 version of me could have), but for whatever reason I found it easier to just smack Emerson around for a few pages.
AML 4311 - Major American Writers 19th Century
Late July 2010
Babo in Melville's "Benito Cereno"
The character of Babo in Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” presents rich material for divergent viewpoints about the story’s meaning and significance. Babo, the leader of a slave revolt aboard the Spanish ship San Dominick, can be seen as heroic freedom fighter, employing bold ingenuity and displaying admirable leadership skills in his quest to win himself and his fellow slaves safe passage back to their homeland in west Africa. On the other hand, it is possible to look at him, with a certain fright and repugnance, as a needlessly cruel and wanton tyrant, whose blatant acts of savagery make him little if any better than his former Spanish captors. If the former account is accurate, the story becomes that of the quixotic but bleak martyrdom of Babo, who is made to serve as a grim reminder of the status quo by having his severed head fixed to a pole. If the latter account holds true, then a man was rightly executed who seized power but went on to abuse it, causing unnecessary death and suffering in the hope of regaining life.
Yet both of these scenarios are reductive. They each make the story into a simplistic morality tale, the only major difference between them being that they reverse the roles of good and evil. The truth, it will be argued, lies somewhere in between. As Captain Amasa Delano so blithely understates the case to himself, “Ah, this slavery breeds ugly passions in man…” Even this statement characteristically misses the point, however, because all of Delano’s thoughts and perceptions are filtered through his benignly veneered racism. This racism is the true villain of “Benito Cereno,” for it is the poisonous seed of which slavery is the terrible flower. Seen in this light, Babo and the other slaves are victims of the overwhelming power of Europe and America, and their underlying ideology of white superiority.
Racism proves to be Babo’s best weapon in deflecting the intrusions of the obtuse Delano, but the systematic cruelty it gives rise to serves to corrupt Babo himself, who, caught up in its inherent violence, is forced to lash out against its injustice by inflicting death and great suffering on the Spanish crewmen in order to terrorize the necessary remainder into compliance with his plan. There is no question of his asking them kindly or reasoning with them to set him and his brethren free, or return them to Senegal. He is obliged to stage a revolt, or be consigned to lifelong slavery, having already been a slave in his own society. In this sense, a rich resonance pervades the statement he makes to Delano, in another context, that “what Babo has done was but duty.” (Incomplete)
Babo and Frederick Douglass
Herman Melville’s story “Benito Cereno” and Frederick Douglass’s first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself display numerous thematic similarities but also many important differences. Both take the reality of the enslavement of blacks, a fiercely controversial topic at the time, as their central concern. Both works, also, are at pains to show the extent to which culturally entrenched racism provides the spurious justification for this enslavement and exploitation. Moreover, both feature central characters (Douglass himself in the Narrative, and mutiny ringleader Babo in “Benito Cereno”) who succeed, at least apparently and temporarily, in securing a measure of freedom for themselves.
However, the similarities end here. On the most basic surface level, Douglass’s endeavor can be considered a success, and Babo’s a failure, for Douglass lived to tell the tale, and prospered afterward, while Babo’s fate was self-imposed silence and inevitable execution. More closely considered, though, Melville’s work constitutes a deeper indictment of racism (and human cruelty generally), and is more troubling and discomforting. If this is the case, then, Douglass’s factual Narrative, for all its historical and humanitarian importance, represents only the beginning of social changes still underway today (the reversal of racial inequality), while the semi-fictional “Benito Cereno” grapples with issues of startlingly contemporary relevance (the benign veneer in which racism often clothes itself). (Incomplete)
7/15/2010
Forest Symbolism in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
The forest, as one of the prime symbols in “Young Goodman Brown,” serves as backdrop for the rich array of religiously charged imagery permeating the story. Among these are the imagery of the infinite and of the chaotic.
The forest is first characterized by the aspect of the infinite when Hawthorne writes “It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude” (1289, emphasis added). The description of the trees as innumerable signifies here the fearful side of the infinite: one may anxiously try to count them (and thus gain a certain control by measuring one's surroundings) but finds one cannot. If the trees seem limitless, it feels like there is no sure way out of the forest, and the self feels overwhelmed and engulfed in a dark, teeming labyrinth. The unseen multitude implies a kind of paranoia, an uncomfortable sense of being watched by unknown, and inaccessible eyes, with possibly malign intentions. One has less, if any power, over what cannot be seen, which is why the forest and the action within it are shrouded in foreboding darkness. In short, the infinite here points to a helpless paralysis in the face of evil, mysterious forces.
The chaotic side of the forest is illustrated by instances of indistinct, murmuring voices described, for example, in the passage beginning with “Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices” (1294) and continuing, “He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance, with the weight of many voices. . . . The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together (1294-95). Here the sinister imagery is auditory, and reflects how hell itself is supposed to sound: a confused, furious, shrieking din of mutually uncomprehending voices, united only by lament.
7/13/2010
Exam 1 - Essay on Thoreau
Thoreau’s chapter on “Reading” in Walden is somewhat problematic. He argues that we should study “the classics” rather than what he considers light, frivolous, entertaining material (or journalism, which for him is vapid and ephemeral). The classics, in Thoreau’s view, represent the “noblest thoughts of humanity.” In addition to this, Thoreau thinks written language to be inherently superior to spoken language. These two claims combine in such a way that his argument is untenable, though not without merit at some points.
For one, Thoreau seems to think of the classics only as something written. Of course somebody did eventually write them down, but many of his favored examples, like the Indian Vedas and Homer’s Greek epics, in fact originated as oral traditions. Perhaps Thoreau didn’t share our contemporary skepticism about whether Homer really existed. But he must have realized in a general way that oral tradition preceded, at least chronologically, written tradition. However, he does seem to anticipate Jacques Derrida’s critique of “phonocentrism,” the view propounded by Plato and others that the spoken has priority over the written because of things like breath and presence. Probably not too many others were engaging with such concepts in Thoreau’s time, so for this, at least, he deserves credit.
Thoreau’s education and breeding as shown in this chapter seem to belie his back-to-nature rusticism, but this isn’t as contradictory as it seems, for he admits in several places that his stay at Walden is only an experiment. What is open to critique about his emphasis on classic literature is the very notion of classic literature itself. Thoreau’s idea of the “canon” of great works of humanity, while showing an incipient cosmopolitanism in its inclusion of Indian and Chinese works, is still essentially that of a stuffy Harvard man. Perhaps it is unfair to fault Thoreau for not questioning canonicity, for he lived about a century before the literary canon and what it represented would come into question. But since he seems to compare Greek poetic diction with folksy American slang, one cannot help but look askance at his privileging, on this basis, the written over the spoken.
7/22/2010
Exam 2 - Essay on Douglass
In Douglass’s Narrative, an admirable and sympathetic portrait is present of a slave’s journey to freedom. In doing so he has recourse to many aspects of Romantic ideology. These include the discourse of the sentimental, the belief that intellectual development broadens one’s world, and the notion of a godlike component in human beings.
Douglass wastes no time producing an emotional appeal for his story. Almost immediately he submerges the reader in the horrific realities of slavery, starting with a graphic description of the whipping of his aunt. This foreshadows the many other abominations to come. A less Romantic approach to these events would have sapped the narrative of its moral and emotional force. Douglass takes well-deserved opportunities to heap condemning epithets on the slaveholders, calling them wicked, savage, barbaric, bloodthirsty, etc. Because of the level of detail involved, Douglass’s account also manages to produce the impression of veracity and authenticity, cementing the sentimental appeal.
Later on, when his master’s kindly wife begins teaching him to read, only to be stopped for fear that literacy would render Douglass an unfit, unruly slave, Douglass has an epiphany. He has inadvertently been shown the way to freedom, or the first step of it, at least. Through various cunning stratagems, Douglass gradually learns to read, and expands his sense of the world’s size and scope. There is so much to know outside plantation life, he realizes, and the only question now would be the practical means of escaping it. He is elevated by this intellectual awakening, to a status far above the beastlike condition to which he would otherwise have been consigned.
Finally, Douglass gets an intimation of his spiritual side when he watches, enraptured, the boats sailing across the Chesapeake Bay. The limitless horizon and sea provide him a glimpse into his infinite possibilities. This finally gives him the courage to stand up to Edward Covey, violently asserting that he is free and noble and human, and can no longer be bound up, whether by ropes or by fear.
The best thing I wrote for this class I have already posted, but two years ago, so I will link to it: Anthropocentrism in Emerson's Nature. I have a few other things from the class to post, though: a short response essay on Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown," a couple of admittedly weak short exam essays on Thoreau and Douglass, and perhaps most interesting, two scrapped introductions to the paper I never wrote on Melville's excellent story "Benito Cereno." I wish I would have been able to write a whole paper on this story (as the 2011 version of me could have), but for whatever reason I found it easier to just smack Emerson around for a few pages.
AML 4311 - Major American Writers 19th Century
Late July 2010
Babo in Melville's "Benito Cereno"
The character of Babo in Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” presents rich material for divergent viewpoints about the story’s meaning and significance. Babo, the leader of a slave revolt aboard the Spanish ship San Dominick, can be seen as heroic freedom fighter, employing bold ingenuity and displaying admirable leadership skills in his quest to win himself and his fellow slaves safe passage back to their homeland in west Africa. On the other hand, it is possible to look at him, with a certain fright and repugnance, as a needlessly cruel and wanton tyrant, whose blatant acts of savagery make him little if any better than his former Spanish captors. If the former account is accurate, the story becomes that of the quixotic but bleak martyrdom of Babo, who is made to serve as a grim reminder of the status quo by having his severed head fixed to a pole. If the latter account holds true, then a man was rightly executed who seized power but went on to abuse it, causing unnecessary death and suffering in the hope of regaining life.
Yet both of these scenarios are reductive. They each make the story into a simplistic morality tale, the only major difference between them being that they reverse the roles of good and evil. The truth, it will be argued, lies somewhere in between. As Captain Amasa Delano so blithely understates the case to himself, “Ah, this slavery breeds ugly passions in man…” Even this statement characteristically misses the point, however, because all of Delano’s thoughts and perceptions are filtered through his benignly veneered racism. This racism is the true villain of “Benito Cereno,” for it is the poisonous seed of which slavery is the terrible flower. Seen in this light, Babo and the other slaves are victims of the overwhelming power of Europe and America, and their underlying ideology of white superiority.
Racism proves to be Babo’s best weapon in deflecting the intrusions of the obtuse Delano, but the systematic cruelty it gives rise to serves to corrupt Babo himself, who, caught up in its inherent violence, is forced to lash out against its injustice by inflicting death and great suffering on the Spanish crewmen in order to terrorize the necessary remainder into compliance with his plan. There is no question of his asking them kindly or reasoning with them to set him and his brethren free, or return them to Senegal. He is obliged to stage a revolt, or be consigned to lifelong slavery, having already been a slave in his own society. In this sense, a rich resonance pervades the statement he makes to Delano, in another context, that “what Babo has done was but duty.” (Incomplete)
Babo and Frederick Douglass
Herman Melville’s story “Benito Cereno” and Frederick Douglass’s first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself display numerous thematic similarities but also many important differences. Both take the reality of the enslavement of blacks, a fiercely controversial topic at the time, as their central concern. Both works, also, are at pains to show the extent to which culturally entrenched racism provides the spurious justification for this enslavement and exploitation. Moreover, both feature central characters (Douglass himself in the Narrative, and mutiny ringleader Babo in “Benito Cereno”) who succeed, at least apparently and temporarily, in securing a measure of freedom for themselves.
However, the similarities end here. On the most basic surface level, Douglass’s endeavor can be considered a success, and Babo’s a failure, for Douglass lived to tell the tale, and prospered afterward, while Babo’s fate was self-imposed silence and inevitable execution. More closely considered, though, Melville’s work constitutes a deeper indictment of racism (and human cruelty generally), and is more troubling and discomforting. If this is the case, then, Douglass’s factual Narrative, for all its historical and humanitarian importance, represents only the beginning of social changes still underway today (the reversal of racial inequality), while the semi-fictional “Benito Cereno” grapples with issues of startlingly contemporary relevance (the benign veneer in which racism often clothes itself). (Incomplete)
7/15/2010
Forest Symbolism in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
The forest, as one of the prime symbols in “Young Goodman Brown,” serves as backdrop for the rich array of religiously charged imagery permeating the story. Among these are the imagery of the infinite and of the chaotic.
The forest is first characterized by the aspect of the infinite when Hawthorne writes “It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude” (1289, emphasis added). The description of the trees as innumerable signifies here the fearful side of the infinite: one may anxiously try to count them (and thus gain a certain control by measuring one's surroundings) but finds one cannot. If the trees seem limitless, it feels like there is no sure way out of the forest, and the self feels overwhelmed and engulfed in a dark, teeming labyrinth. The unseen multitude implies a kind of paranoia, an uncomfortable sense of being watched by unknown, and inaccessible eyes, with possibly malign intentions. One has less, if any power, over what cannot be seen, which is why the forest and the action within it are shrouded in foreboding darkness. In short, the infinite here points to a helpless paralysis in the face of evil, mysterious forces.
The chaotic side of the forest is illustrated by instances of indistinct, murmuring voices described, for example, in the passage beginning with “Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices” (1294) and continuing, “He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance, with the weight of many voices. . . . The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together (1294-95). Here the sinister imagery is auditory, and reflects how hell itself is supposed to sound: a confused, furious, shrieking din of mutually uncomprehending voices, united only by lament.
7/13/2010
Exam 1 - Essay on Thoreau
Thoreau’s chapter on “Reading” in Walden is somewhat problematic. He argues that we should study “the classics” rather than what he considers light, frivolous, entertaining material (or journalism, which for him is vapid and ephemeral). The classics, in Thoreau’s view, represent the “noblest thoughts of humanity.” In addition to this, Thoreau thinks written language to be inherently superior to spoken language. These two claims combine in such a way that his argument is untenable, though not without merit at some points.
For one, Thoreau seems to think of the classics only as something written. Of course somebody did eventually write them down, but many of his favored examples, like the Indian Vedas and Homer’s Greek epics, in fact originated as oral traditions. Perhaps Thoreau didn’t share our contemporary skepticism about whether Homer really existed. But he must have realized in a general way that oral tradition preceded, at least chronologically, written tradition. However, he does seem to anticipate Jacques Derrida’s critique of “phonocentrism,” the view propounded by Plato and others that the spoken has priority over the written because of things like breath and presence. Probably not too many others were engaging with such concepts in Thoreau’s time, so for this, at least, he deserves credit.
Thoreau’s education and breeding as shown in this chapter seem to belie his back-to-nature rusticism, but this isn’t as contradictory as it seems, for he admits in several places that his stay at Walden is only an experiment. What is open to critique about his emphasis on classic literature is the very notion of classic literature itself. Thoreau’s idea of the “canon” of great works of humanity, while showing an incipient cosmopolitanism in its inclusion of Indian and Chinese works, is still essentially that of a stuffy Harvard man. Perhaps it is unfair to fault Thoreau for not questioning canonicity, for he lived about a century before the literary canon and what it represented would come into question. But since he seems to compare Greek poetic diction with folksy American slang, one cannot help but look askance at his privileging, on this basis, the written over the spoken.
7/22/2010
Exam 2 - Essay on Douglass
In Douglass’s Narrative, an admirable and sympathetic portrait is present of a slave’s journey to freedom. In doing so he has recourse to many aspects of Romantic ideology. These include the discourse of the sentimental, the belief that intellectual development broadens one’s world, and the notion of a godlike component in human beings.
Douglass wastes no time producing an emotional appeal for his story. Almost immediately he submerges the reader in the horrific realities of slavery, starting with a graphic description of the whipping of his aunt. This foreshadows the many other abominations to come. A less Romantic approach to these events would have sapped the narrative of its moral and emotional force. Douglass takes well-deserved opportunities to heap condemning epithets on the slaveholders, calling them wicked, savage, barbaric, bloodthirsty, etc. Because of the level of detail involved, Douglass’s account also manages to produce the impression of veracity and authenticity, cementing the sentimental appeal.
Later on, when his master’s kindly wife begins teaching him to read, only to be stopped for fear that literacy would render Douglass an unfit, unruly slave, Douglass has an epiphany. He has inadvertently been shown the way to freedom, or the first step of it, at least. Through various cunning stratagems, Douglass gradually learns to read, and expands his sense of the world’s size and scope. There is so much to know outside plantation life, he realizes, and the only question now would be the practical means of escaping it. He is elevated by this intellectual awakening, to a status far above the beastlike condition to which he would otherwise have been consigned.
Finally, Douglass gets an intimation of his spiritual side when he watches, enraptured, the boats sailing across the Chesapeake Bay. The limitless horizon and sea provide him a glimpse into his infinite possibilities. This finally gives him the courage to stand up to Edward Covey, violently asserting that he is free and noble and human, and can no longer be bound up, whether by ropes or by fear.