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English 50: U.S. Minority Literature (Week 1b) http://ucsbengl50.wordpress.com/

English 50: U.S. Minority Literature (Week 1b) http://ucsbengl50.wordpress.com/. Why is this class called U.S. minority literature? Why not Transnational ? Why not trans-indigenous ? Why not hemispheric ? . On Being Brought from Africa to America (By: Phillis Wheatley 1773)

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English 50: U.S. Minority Literature (Week 1b) http://ucsbengl50.wordpress.com/

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  1. English 50: U.S. Minority Literature (Week 1b)http://ucsbengl50.wordpress.com/

  2. Why is this class called U.S. minority literature? • Why not Transnational? • Why not trans-indigenous? • Why not hemispheric?

  3. On Being Brought from Africa to America (By: Phillis Wheatley 1773) 'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die." Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin'd, andjointh' angelictrain.

  4. Phillis Wheatleyarrives in Boston on July 11, 1761, on board the Phillis, a slave ship. She was "a slender, frail, female child," naked except for a kilt made from "a quantity of dirty carpet," as a descendant of her owners wrote in 1834. • John Wheatleyacquires her as a house servantand names her after the slave ship. • “On Being Brought from Africa to America” displays the hallmarks of her early style-religious piety wrapped in heroic couplets.

  5. Heroic couplets: largely closed and self-contained (i.e. endstopped), as opposed to enjamed. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18) • Enjambed: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and asleep

  6. Transnational turn: U.S. literature in transnational contexts, i.e. black Atlantic, Pacific Rim, circumAtlantic and so on. • Postcolonial turn: U.S. literature through post/colonial frameworks. Literature is typically written by postcolonial subjects. E.g. Kincaid. • Hemispheric turn: U.S. literature in hemispheric contexts, i.e. of North and South America. • Indigenous turn: Native American literature through an indigenous framework, which can be hemispheric or even global.

  7. Characteristics of the slave narrative • James Olney's “Characteristics of the slave narrative” notes strict form in slave narratives A) An engraved portrait, signed by narrator B) A title page that includes the claim, as an integral part of the title, “Written by Himself” C) Testimonials by a white abolitionist friend of the narrator (William Garrison) or by a white amanuensis responsible for the text. D) a poetic epigraph E) The actual narrative

  8. Differences between Douglass and Wheatley • Wheatley’s poetry conforms to the heoric couplets of Shakespeare, firmly establishing African American literature as equal to great historical writers. In doing so, she argues for the equality of African Americans even while enslaved. • Douglass’s work writes within the form of a slave narrative and emphasizes several assumptions held about enslaved African Americans. The narrative is distinctly not conforming to patterns of the epic. The narrative is different and significant in different ways.

  9. Importance of non-human in the slave narrative • The slave has been considered on the border of the human and the animal. “I am glad the time has come when the ‘lions write history.’” (Wendell Phillips) “the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/f-douglas/narrative-douglass.pdf

  10. The importance of morality of the slave • One person speaking for other enslaved African Americans. The first-person “I” becomes significant in the slave narrative as a way of witness. • Preface: emphasizes the morality of Frederick Douglass. • The existence of this morality critiques the assumption that the slave is not human.

  11. Religion • Phillis Wheatley: Christianity as True • Frederick Douglass: True and False Christianity • Religion is not always moral. This critiques the idea of the slave as non-human.

  12. Keyterms: • Sorrow Songs • Double Conciousness • “It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” • How does this represent a double consciousness? How can we understand this discrepancy in tone and in content when, for example, looking back at Phillis Wheatley’s poetry?

  13. How does Douglass and the writers in the preface “read” Wheatley and the work that comes before the slave narrative by (few) African American writers? Are the conventions of the slave narrative constricting to argument that the African American should be treated as a human?

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