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Harriet Jacobs Harriet Jacobs (c

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Harriet Jacobs Harriet Jacobs (c. 1813—1897) • Birthplace: Edenton, N.C. • Born to two enslaved parents. • Outside of slavery, Jacobs did domestic work. In detailing her life story, she was also a contributor to the abolitionist cause. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) • Jacobs’ narrative is published under the pseudonym “Linda Brent.” • Jacobs had a hard time obtaining publication of her narrative until she gained the help of Lydia Maria Child (remember “The Quadroons”) who wrote an introduction to Jacobs’ narrative. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl • While composing a narrative that exposed the many horrors of slavery, Jacobs sought to focus on • how slavery debased and demoralized women • how enslaved black women were subjected to white male lust • how slavery deprived black women from making homes for their families • The unfortunate repercussion of Jacobs’ focus is that at the time Jacobs wrote her narrative, attitudes of sexual prudence and female sexual purity would allow some readers to blame the victim (enslaved black females) rather than the victimizers (white male slave-holders). Questions for Further Thought • How would the impact of the narrative had changed if it had been written my a mistress (wife of the slave master) instead of an enslaved black woman? • What factors in Jacobs’ narrative contribute to the reality that reaching the North did not wholly equate to a life of happiness during the time that Jacobs wrote her narrative? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) • Birthplace: Portland, ME • Education: Bowdoin College (1825 graduate at the age of 18); post-graduate studies in Europe, specifically Germany, Italy, France and Spain, then later Switzerland and Austria • Career: Professor of languages (Bowdoin College and Harvard University), literary translator, and poet Poetic Style and Inspiration • Taking pride in his cosmopolitanism and transatlanticism, Longfellow rejected the strict American literary nationalist idea of writing that drew on native sources. Instead, he drew inspiration from a variety of writers, including Homer, Virgil, and Chaucer. • By 1870, Longfellow earned about $15,000 a year from his writing (compared to his annual Harvard salary of $1800). “A Psalm of Life” • Poem’s Subtitle: “What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist” • Inspired by Longfellow’s interests in Judaism, as well as the poetic verse of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. • The Poem’s central message revolves around the theme of living life as opposed to taking it for granted. “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” • The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island was consecrated in 1763. • Longfellow visited the synagogue in 1852. At that time, the Jewish community seemed to have vanished from the area. • Longfellow’s poem acts as a commemoration to the Jewish community. “The Slave Singing at Midnight” • Longfellow wrote “The Slave Singing at Midnight” at a time when there was a growing sentiment for the abolition of slavery. • Minstrel shows/minstrelsy were growing in popularity in the 1840s (although they began in the 1830s). The shows featured white actors, dressed in blackface, acting as black people. The black people depicted in the minstrel shows were characterized as buffoonish, dim-witted, lazy, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. • Longfellow’s poem counters the image of black/enslaved people perpetuated by the minstrel shows. Questions for Further Thought • For each of the assigned poems, answer the following questions: • Who is the speaker of the poem? • To whom is the speaker speaking? • What is the central message of the poem? • What are some of the specific language features (figurative language, tone, syntax) in the poem? James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) • Birthplace: Burlington, N.J. (family moved to Cooperstown in 1790) • Education: Yale University (expelled for miscondct) • Career: sailor in the U.S. Navy (prior to his father’s death) • Founder of the Bread and Cheese Club, a social and cultural conclave that included scholars, writers, painters, educators, and other professional who took an interest in the arts Portrait by John W. Jarvis Body of Literary Work • Precaution (1820) – first novel models after Jane Austen’s Persuasian (1818) • 32 novels (Cooper was a pioneering author of sea fiction.) • 1 historiography of the American navy • 5 travel books • 2 major works of social criticism The Leatherstocking Tales • a series of five novels (pentalogy) about the frontier life • The Pioneers (1823) • The Last of the Mohicans (1826) • The Prairie (1827) • The Pathfinder (1840) • The Deerslayer (1841) The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 • American Romanticism – American romanticism in literature is characterized by democracy and freedom, the American landscape (the frontier), and individualism (a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control). Questions for Further Thought Note how in the first paragraph, the narrator states, “[W]e must use an author’s privilege, and shift the scene” (80). How do these words affect the reader’s relationship with the narrator? Why do you think Cooper has made this choice? Review the third paragraph (“There is reason in an Indian…”) of page 82. What do Hawk-eye’s words suggest? What message is Cooper trying to convey in his work? John Greenleaf Whittier John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) • Birthplace: Haverhill, M.A. • Education: limited (partly due to the Quaker suspicion of nonQuaker literature); Attended two terms at Haverhill Academy. • Career: poet, abolitionist, newspaper editor (for an abolitionist publication) Whittier’s Life as a Poet • At ag fourteen, Whittier found himself inspired by the poetry of Scottish poet Robert Burns. • His poetry is characterized by the following • regional dialect • homely subjects • a democratic social conscience Anti-Slavery Ideologies • Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison*, who published Whittier’s first poem in a local newspaper, inspired Whittier’s own abolitionist ideologies. *Keep Garrison in mind for next week’s reading of Douglass’ narrative. • Garrison also convinced Whittier’s father that young Whittier deserved to have a formal education. • Whittier paid his way through two terms at Haverhill Academy. • In 1833, Whittier published Justice and Expediency, and antislavery pamphlet. • He also helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society. Literary Work • In promoting his abolitionist ideologies, Whittier went on to publish over one hundred antislavery poem, which was collected in Poems Whitten during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States (1837). • With his interest in New England’s history, Whittier also wrote historical sketches, his first being Legends of New England (1831), which he composed using sketches and verse. • Troubled by the carnage of the Civil War, Whittier’s poetic style took a retreat, in an effort him to capture America’s more idealized, harmonic past. Hyperlinks • The Fugitive Slave Acts • “The Hunters of Men” Questions for Further Thought • How does Whittier’s tone in “The Hunters of Man” shape his message? What effect does he work to create? Who, in his audience, could he be working to get a reaction from? • Note the tone of “Ichabod!” How would you describe Whittier’s tone? What sentiment does he evoke from the readers? Lydia Maria Child Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) • Birthplace: Medford, M.A. (as Lydia Francis) • Career: Abolitionist, author, and humanitarian Child’s Accomplishments • Child published forty-seven books (four of which were novels). • She founded the Juvenile Miscellany, the nation’s first successful children’s magazine, in 1826. • Her activism spoke to the rights of women, Native Americans, and African Americans. Child’s as an Inspiration • Feminists works such as The Frugal Housewife (1829), The Mother’s Book (1831), and History of the Conditions of Women, in Various Nations and Ages (1835), in which Child focused on the importance of women’s roles as homemakers and mothers, and showed further concern for women’s rights, would in part inspire other feminists such as Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others. • Antislavery works such as The Evils of Slavery, and the Cure for Slavery (1836) and “The Quadroons” (1842) would go on to inspire William Wells Brown’s Clotel (1853). Radical Activism • Child published An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans in 1833, which presented America’s first full-scale analysis of race and slavery in America. • After its publications, subscriptions to the Juvenile Miscellany dropped, an Child had to give up her editorship. • Because of her politics, the Boston Athenaeum (library) withdrew Child’s borrowing privileges. The “One-Drop Rule” • The “one-drop rule” is the accepted idea that one drop of African American blood would constitute a person being racially defined as black. This idea does not work in reverse (one drop of white blood does not make you white. Various levels were incorporated with the “one-drop rule.” • mulatto – child of one “pure” black parent and one “pure” white parent • quadroon – 3/4 white and 1/4 black • octoroon – 7/8 white and 1/8 black Please note that these terms are deemed offensive by today’s standards due to their association to the systems of class and enslavement. The Slave Codes • The Slave Codes were state-established laws meant to maintain a standard for determining who was born into slavery. Children born to an enslaved woman (regardless of the father’s race or free status) was considered to be born into slavery. In order to maintain racial purity, some Southern societies strongly prohibited sexual relations between white women and black men. Manumission • Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing an enslaved person. Unfortunately, if a slave owner did not free his/her slaves prior to his/her death, and he/she did not do so in his/her will, then the enslaved person (like property) would be passed on to the next of kin to the deceased. Questions for Further Thought • How does Child use elements of foreshadowing to forecast the story’s dismal end? • Note how Child develops her characters. Who does she villainize in the story? Why does she choose not to villainized certain characters that the reader? With this question, consider each of the following characters individually: • Rosalie • Edward • Xarifa • Charlotte • George Elliot