White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Emily Dickinson's life has intrigued many people over the years.  Why did she withdraw from society, refusing to "cross [her] Father's ground to any House or town"?  Why did she write such strangely compelling poetry?  Who inspired her?

One popular reimagining of ED is William Luce's 1976 play The Belle of Amherst.  (The picture below is from Redmond, Washington's Sound Theater Company's recent production.)


You may also see part of Jennifer Levinson's performance at this video linked below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz8girAKwJM

Others are intrigued by ED's relationship to her sister-in-law, Sue.



http://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/emily-dickinson-lesbian-her-letter-to-susan-gilbert-in-june-of-1852-might-tell-us-less-than-you-think/

http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/ed/node/78

Brenda Wineapple has decided to examine ED's friendship with poet, editor, and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson.  As she points out, often people have wondered just what ED saw in Higginson.  He has been caricatured as the man who tried to regularize ED's poetry.  After all, his poetry tended to be carefully crafted sonnets, and his most well-known poems today are translations of Petrarch, the 14th century Italian poet known for his love poems to Laura, a woman he never actually met.

http://www.sonnets.org/petrarch.htm#010

http://www.sonnets.org/petrarch.htm#020

Also, take a look at the cover of White Heat above.  How old does she look?  What comes to mind when you look at her?  when you look at her next to the middle-aged man with facial hair and a military uniform?

 
It is one of the few photographs of ED.  True.  It was taken when she was a teenager.  She began to write to TWH when she was thirty.  Without fooling around with her existing photographs (which in itself is trouble and which ED's family did do), we will always have a distorted view of ED (and therefore of her relationship to TWH) if we focus on the photographs.  I don't know what I would have placed on the cover of White Heat, but something less direct and more evocative might have been better.

However, Higginson was more than "just" a translator and magazine editor, and his relationship with ED was fairly complex.  Wineapple notes its sexual tension.  Today we might consider their relationship to be an emotional affair and even emotional infidelity as TWH was married to a chronically-ill woman at the time.  Wineapple also speculates about what he gained from ED as well as about what she gained from him.  Moreover, as Wineapple points out, ED consciously chose Higginson as her mentor, for she would have been familiar with his work for the Atlantic Monthly as well as his political activism.  This is not to say that ED was politically radical or even engaged with politics.  Some of the tension in her relationship with TWH occurs when she downplays his desire to fight in the Civil War.  (He ultimately trained African-American soldiers in South Carolina.)  She was much more interested in TWH's nature writing, and her family was relatively conservative.


Below is Frederic Edwin Church's painting of Mount Katahdin in Maine, one of the many subjects of TWH's nature writing.

However, TWH tended to examine nature closely.  A more typical topic for him would be the water lily (shown below):


As you'll note from these poems, ED also likes to examine nature closely.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20949

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180204

http://www.tcnj.edu/~carney/dickinson/poems.html#did_the_harebell



Yet Wineapple is persuasive in her readings of ED's poems with imagery relevant to the Civil War.  See these links for a few of these poems: 

Apologies for any pop-ups!

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/10548

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/My_Portion_is_Defeat_%E2%80%94_today_%E2%80%94

Below is a picture of Glory, a 1989 film about the company that Higginson had wanted to command.




ED and TWH's friendship began in 1862 and continued through the rest of her life despite his remarriage to a much younger woman and her intriguing relationship with Judge Otis Lord.  ED & TWH's correspondence periodically slowed, but she would send him her poems, referring to herself as his "Pupil" as late as 1884, the year before her death.  Interestingly, even then, she also toyed with submitting her poems for publication when another of TWH's proteges, Helen Hunt Jackson, contacted her about submitting them to The No Name Series.  ED sent Jackson one poem, "Success is counted sweetest":
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=174990

This poem would be published...anonymously.

After her death, TWH co-edited her poems with Mabel Loomis Todd, the mistress of ED's brother.  Todd, as it turns out, was responsible for the "regularization" of ED's poems.  TWH was more of an advocate, convincing Todd to include particular poems and writing the preface to the collected poems.  Initially, this project was successful, but 19th century readers were not quite ready for Dickinson, and Lavinia Dickinson, ED's sister and heir, soon quarreled with both Todd and TWH. 

Below is a link to a version of TWH's preface that appeared in the October 1891 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.  Beneath the Victorian verbiage, he quotes freely from ED's poems and letters:

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/emilyd/edletter.htm

I'll close with a picture from the garden at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA.  During her lifetime, ED was also known as a gardener.

Cabeza De Vaca

Link

Follow this link for a picture of Cabeza de Vaca performing surgery.  Thank you, Zeynep! 

Here is a link to PBS' biography of Cabeza de Vaca:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/cabezadevaca.htm

Follow this link to find his narrative of exploration:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/one/cabeza.htm

Here is a map of part of his route:

Map of Rowlandson's Removes

Link

Above is a link to a map of Mary Rowlandson's journey while she was a captive.  Zeynep found this map.  Below is a map of the Northeast (including New England)  in case you need it.  Hooray for Mapquest and Brewster Academy!

Lewis and Clark - Landscape

Link

Above is a link to Tommy Emanuel's slide show of places that Lewis and Clark's expedition visited. Thank you, Danielle, for posting that link!

At the top of the page is the National Parks Conservation Association's map of the Lewis and Clark Trail.  I think that it may help to see their route.  Below are some pictures from the trail. 

Perhaps this is what it was like to travel on horseback across Montana.








Enjoy!

Biography: Sacagawea: Guide & Friend

Link

Above is a link to a short video clip on Sacagawea.  Danielle originally posted it at her site.  The picture at the top is from a sculpture of members of the expedition (Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea & her son, Clark's slave York, and Lewis' dog Seaman).  The sculpture is outdoors in Kansas City, Missouri, and the picture was posted at Wikipedia.

For more information about Sacawagea, see these links:

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0400/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0400/stories/0401_0107.html

http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/inside/saca.html

Overview for Midterm

Above is a picture of Igbo elders in council.  Below is a quick overview of our material.

Genres:

novel -- a fictional prose narrative of at least 50,000 words, which emphasizes character over plot, focuses on a protagonist with whom we are supposed to sympathize, and has a realistic-seeming setting

life writing -- non-fictional writing about an individual's life.  Sub-genres are biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, letters, and journals or diaries.

autobiography -- covers the whole of the author's life

memoir -- covers part of the author's life

Works --

Apocalypse Now (1979) dir. by Francis Ford Coppola.  Set in Vietnam although it is an adaptation of Heart of Darkness.  Capt. Willard is the narrator.  He is sent on a mission to kill Col. Kurtz, a Green Beret who has gone rogue.  The men on the boat escorting Willard include Chef (remember the tiger scene) and Lance the surfer.  Along the way we meet Col. Kilgore (who wants to see Lance surf) and a photojournalist (played by Dennis Hopper) who is Coppola's version of Kurtz' Russian.

Heart of Darkness (serialized 1899, published as a book 1902) by Joseph Conrad for whom English was *not* his first language.  This novel is a frame narrative, beginning with an unnamed Englishman's narration and then moving to Marlow's narration.  Marlow is a merchant marine who goes to the Belgian Congo as an employee of the nefarious Company.  He is sent to captain a boat rescuing Kurtz, a star of the Company.  Along the way we meet the Accountant (who may remind you of Kilgore), many pilgrims, the Helmsman and the Fireman, the Russian, and Kurtz' Intended.  Is Marlow on the hero's journey as he moves from the center (London) to the margins (Congo, esp. Kurtz' trading post)?  Note that London has not always been the center.  It has been one of the dark places like the Congo.

"An Image of Africa" (1975) -- African novelist Chinua Achebe strongly criticizes Conrad's depiction of Africa and Africans.  He focuses on Conrad's description of the landscape and his refusal to let Africans speak for themselves.

Achebe on writing in English -- Achebe feels that he has been given the gift of English.  He argues for his choice to write in English.  (Ten or fifteen years later Kenyan Ngugi wa' Thiongo will argue for his choice to write in Gikiyu, his first language.)

Things Fall Apart (1958) -- This is not only Chinua Achebe's first novel but also one of the first works of modern African literature. Achebe wrote this novel shortly before Nigeria gained its independence from the UK.  Things Fall Apart is a third-person narrative set in the 1890s when missionaries were active in the British colony.  Its protagonist is Okonkwo, a forceful man whose downfall may be his pride, his anger, or his desire NOT to be like his father.  Is he a tragic hero?  Okonkwo has three wives and many children.  We focus on Nwoye, his son who repudiates his father to become a Christian, and Ezinma, his daughter whom Okonkwo wishes were his son.  She has "the right spirit."  We also meet Ikemefuna, Okonkwo's foster son whom O. kills.  Ikemefuna's death naturally alienates Nwoye.  Along the way, we learn much about Igbo culture (especially its reliance on oracles, proverbs, and a council of elders).  We also watched a TV miniseries of TFA that includes scenes NOT in the novel.

 
Turkish Embassy Letters (not published during the life of their author, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu).  Lady Mary wrote these letters while accompanying her husband, the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1716 to 1718.  At this time, the British Empire was not yet dominant, and the Ottoman Empire was powerful and prosperous.  The letters we read included Lady Mary's letters to the poet Alexander Pope (she makes many literary and cultural references and even translates some Turkish poetry), her friend Susan Chiswell (about vaccination for smallpox), and her sister Lady Mar (about trips to the harems or homes of two Turkish women of high rank).  Does it make a difference that Lady Mary edited these letters?

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) -- Afro-British businessman, anti-slavery activist, and former slave Olaudah Equiano writes his autobiography.  We discussed his depiction of being taken onboard the Europeans' slave ship (he was already a slave), of seeing snow for the first time, of being betrayed by his first English owner Captain Pascal, of witnessing the sexual harassment of female slaves, and of finally buying his freedom.  How does Equiano represent himself?  How does he address his audience?  Who is his audience?  Some scholars question whether Equiano was born in Africa, but most do not.  Equiano was also an Igbo, but he lived on the coast of what is now Nigeria.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) -- American social activist, educator, and former slave Harriet Jacobs writes her autobiography.  However, she calls herself Linda Brent in this work.  (At the time she wrote, slavery was still legal in the US, and the Fugitive Slave Act was in effect.)  Jacobs emphasizes what it was like for a child and then a young woman to be a slave.  We see that she grew up in a community of slaves who were thwarted in their efforts to be free.  As a young woman, she was menaced by her owner's father, Dr. Flint, a "hoary-headed miscreant, " yet she had an affair with a white neighbor.  From this affair, she bore two children.  She also distinguishes between womanly women (like her grandmother) and unwomanly women (like Dr. Flint's wife).  Jacobs eventually escaped from slavery, spending almost seven years in her grandmother's attic before finally traveling to the North.  There, as we learn, she was not free until (against her wishes) her employer bought her freedom from Dr. Flint's son-in-law.

We also watched scenes from TV versions of Dickens' David Copperfield (contrasting David's joy with his nurse Peggotty's family and his fear with his stepfather Mr. Murdstone) and Jane Eyre (focusing on her mistreatment by her aunt and cousins).  Below is an original illustration of David with his nurse's family.


The Story of the Stone (written during the 1740s & 1750s, published in 1791) by Cao Xueqin (vol. 1-3) and Gao E (4-5).  This very long novel (five volumes in its English translation) narrates a wealthy young boy (Bao-yu)'s growth from a spoiled child to a man.  He is also involved in an emotional triangle with his delicate, sensitive cousin Dai-yu and the more resilient and emotionally intelligent cousin Bao-chai whom he will marry.  This novel has a complicated and dense frame narrative!  Along the way, we meet Bao-yu's Grandmother Jia, his father Jia Zheng (the masculine ideal for his class), many girl-cousins, and Bao-yu's maid and later chamber wife Aroma.

We watched scenes from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring Again (2000), a film by Korean filmmaker Kim Duk-ki.  This film is set in a secluded, rural monastery that was built in the middle of a small lake.  It follows the relationship between a monk and his adopted son, a passionate man who will eventually kill his wife.  We looked at scenes from Spring (the son's boyhood) and Fall (the son's young adulthood). 

Finally, we watched Raise the Red Lantern (1991), a film by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou.  This film, adapted from a novella by Su Tong, follows a former university student, Songlian, as she becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy man from rural Northern China.  We do not see much nature except for human nature as the women of the compound compete with each other and the servants look on and comment.  Important characters are not only the Master whose face we rarely see but also the second wife Zhouyan (a scorpion with the Buddha's face), the third wife Meishan (a former opera singer), Songlian's disgruntled servant Yan'er, Meishan's lover Dr. Gao, and Feipu, the Master's older son.  Is Songlian a tragic heroine?


Presentations

Sean's presentation on the life of Black Nationalist, entrepreneur and Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)

Bryan's presentation on the history of Liberia

Concepts

mimesis -- art that imitates life...or elements of art that imitates life

orality -- characteristics that arise from or remain from a preliterate society (or a society without writing).  Some of these characteristics may include a reliance on proverbs, performance, and an audience.  In a preliterate society, memory is especially pragmatic and flexible...since there are no written records.  An oral performer also relies on set phrases to jog his or her memory.

imperialism -- refers to one country's political, economic, and sometimes cultural domination over another

colonialism -- refers to the practice of settling a country as the British settled in America (before we became independent), India, or their territories in Africa

post-colonialism -- refers to the aftermath of independence.  Post-colonialist writing is generally by individuals whose lands were occupied and depicts experiences from their perspectives.

center/margins

hero's journey -- Joseph Campbell's term.  Stages include birth, call to adventure, crossing the threshold, helpers/amulet, tests, climax/final battle, return, elixir, and return home.  Is Marlow a hero?  If so, what is his elixir?

hypermasculinity

misogyny -- hatred for and distrust of women or the feminine

tragic hero -- is often of noble stature but is not perfect, is capable of both good and evil, experiences a downfall because of his/her tragic fall, and does not deserve his/her punishment.  Yet his/her fall is not completely negative and depressing.  There is room for his/her awareness and our catharsis (or purging of emotion).

nature/human nature

film as literature

film's visual elements

film's aural elements

Study Guide for the Midterm (Part 2)

Above is a picture from a recent production of Nigerian playwright Biyi Bandele's adaptation of Oroonoko.  I hope that this play comes to the D.C. area!

Back to our study guide. 

Oroonoko (1688) -- connections between this novel & Things Fall Apart or Heart of Darkness, Oroonoko as heroic figure, early novel/Behn as pioneering woman/novel author...or is it a novel?!, Oroonoko as Abolitionist text (or not), primitive vs. civilized, myth of the Noble Savage, genre, cultural contact, relationship between Oroonoko & narrator, relationship between Oroonoko & Imoinda, Behn's depiction of Africa, Behn's depiction of Surinam

Candide (1759) -- what is funny?  what is disturbing?, satire exposing problems, satire as a problem/solution paper, picaro, philosophies, initiation as a theme, Candide's humor, objects of satire, Voltaire's depiction of Paris, Candide's relationship with Cunegonde, his relationship with Pangloss, his relationship with Martin, the ending -- why is Candide's commune in the Ottoman Empire?, treatment of women & lower-class in this satire


Recently Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater staged Harriet Jacobs, Lydia R. Diamond's play based on Incidents and Ms. Jacobs' life.  Above is a picture from the play's rehearsal; below is a video of a rehearsal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ilWF-Fjrgk

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)-- life writing, slave narrative, 19th c. vs. 18th c., Virginia Woolf's description of the 19th c. from Orlando, slave narrative as argumentative or persuasive writing, Jacobs' expectations for women, her treatment by her owners, her sense of audience, her narration and use of asides to the reader, ending of narrative, how does she feel about her daughter knowing who her father was?

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) -- life writing, slave narrative, the popularity of this work, slave narrative as argumentative or persuasive writing, Equiano's Christianity, his relationship with Capt. Pascal, Equiano was a slave in Africa as well, Equiano as narrator, Equiano was from what is now Nigeria


Jane Eyre -- what was controversial about this novel, its narrator

"Stale Mates" (1955, written in the US & in English)  -- set in Hangzhou (a picturesque city in Southern China) during the 1920s, the Warlord Era, what does it mean to be modern?, can one be modern?, Zhang Ailing's depiction of polygamy, the narrator and her attitude towards the characters, men & women, depiction of tradition

Raise the Red Lantern (1991, film) -- set in the north of China during the 1920s, what does it mean to be modern?  what does it mean to be traditional?, Zhang Yimou's depiction of women & of polygamy, visual/aural impact, relationship among the wives, relationship between Songlian and her maid Yan'er, is Master Chen a nice guy, a nice jerk, or a jerk?, what do you make of the ending?

The Story of a Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber (written 1740 to 1750, published 1791, the English translation is in five volumes!) -- frame narrative, Daoist novel, extended family, triangle among Bao-Yu, Bao-Chai, and Dai-Yu, Bao-Yu was a stone in a previous life; Dai-Yu was Diamond Pearl, debt of tears, how do we respond to Bao-Yu (he is moody, prefers to be with women, hates to study, and is interested in clothes and makeup), Bao-Yu's relationship with his father, Jia Zheng (a more traditional man, a scholar and civil servant), role of nature, Bao-Yu's relationship with his grandmother

Essay #1

Out-of-Class Essay #1– Due March 27, 2009

Outcomes:·

To study great, representative literary works from around the world, analyzing them in depth and applying appropriate literary terminology;·

To survey a selection of world literature from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas (after 1650);·

To promote understanding of these works through written response;·

To identify and appreciate major literary genres, content, and style in a variety of works;·

To acquire and practice literary terminology;·

To develop critical thinking through comparative consideration of world literature and, where appropriate, secondary sources;·

To examine literature in relation to its political, social, and historical environment;·

To build on group discussions and blog entries of issues pertaining to the literature and its criticism;·

To write multi-page papers that demonstrate critical reading of texts (primary & secondary sources) and use a style appropriate for academic discourse;·

To maintain academic honesty and use MLA citation (in-text and works cited)

In this assignment, you will be writing a two to five page argument responding to a reading from our class schedule or a video that we’ve seen in class.   This essay may be a traditional literary analysis, exploring one element in a work.  This element may be a work’s genre, its plot, character, setting, theme, imagery, tone, or diction.  You may even want to explore the meaning of a specific passage. 

You may also explore the work’s cultural context (Candide as an Enlightenment text or Oroonoko as an abolitionist text) or its position within world literature.  For example, how does Candide fit with novels like Oroonoko or lifewriting like "The Interesting Narrative"?  What role does the slave narrative play in world literature?  What role does life writing play?

Consider the role of language in world literature.  Joseph Conrad chose to write in English, his third language, rather than in Polish or French.  Chinua Achebe chose to write in English; he also argued that doing so would guarantee him a wider audience.  However, Ngugi wa'Thiongo writes in Gikiuyu, his first language, because he states that to do otherwise would perpetuate colonialism.  What do you think?  Consider that in this part of the semester, we have read a number of English-language works (Heart of Darkness, Oroonoko, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Things Fall Apart) *and* translated works (Candide, The Story of the Stone, A Doll's House, Mother Courage).  Our movie, Raise the Red Lantern, will be in Chinese.

 Finally, use this assignment to explore a topic that has come up in class or among the journal prompts. If you are in the honors module, I encourage you to write on one of the optional writings.  You may also use a reading from our anthology to illuminate one of our assigned readings.  You may use secondary sources from literary criticism, especially if you are in the honors module. 

At this point, though, I am much more interested in what you think of Things Fall Apart or Candide for example, based on your reading of the text rather than what I think or what some literary critic thinks.   However, depending on the approach that you’re taking, you may need to use some secondary sources to provide additional background or support a point that you are making.  Keep in mind that these secondary sources are simply that—background material and support.  They will assist you as you make your case, but make sure that you have the best possible source.  Even though I have gathered a number of web sites, I try to choose the most scholarly yet accessible sites. For citation, even if you do not use secondary sources, you will be using MLA (in-text and works cited). 

Please see me if you need additional information, especially if you are using a source that is not in our anthology or if it has been a while since your last freshman composition course.It goes without saying that I expect this paper to be your own work.  Feel free to draft your paper in your blog or journal.  I’ll also be happy to talk over or look over your ideas during my office hours or (internet connection permitting) online.  If you’d like a second opinion, you may also want to work with one of the Writing Center’s tutors.

Grading

An A paper will be outstanding on all or most levels: close, critical reading of a text or texts, focus, development, support for argument, organization, style, and grammar/mechanics.  (I have listed each level in order of importance; however, errors in the last area will affect your grade.)  It may be on a reading we’ve discussed to death.  In that case, it will show me new insights derived from your close, critical reading and, if necessary, secondary sources.  Alternately, this paper may be on a reading that has been assigned but not discussed in class.  This option may not produce an easier “A,” as I will be looking at your ability to scrutinize a text and produce a well-written essay without the opportunity to discuss your text (and listen to others’ insights about it) in class.  However, it can be a productive route to an A.

 A B paper will be effective on all or most levels: close, critical reading of a text or texts, focus, development, support for argument, organization, style, and grammar/mechanics.  (I have listed each level in order of importance; however, errors in the last area will affect your grade.)  It may be on a reading we’ve discussed in class or a reading that I’ve assigned but not discussed in class. 

A C paper will be adequate on all or most levels: close, critical reading of a text or texts, focus, development, support for argument, organization, style, and grammar/mechanics.  (I have listed each level in order of importance; however, errors in the last area will affect your grade.)  It may be on a reading we’ve discussed in class or a reading that I’ve assigned but not discussed in class.  Note that a C is not failing, simply “average.” 

A D paper will contain significant problems on one or more levels:  close, critical reading of a text or texts, focus, development, support for argument, organization, style, and grammar/mechanics.  The first five areas are especially important.  Papers can also be too long or too short.  Please check in with me or a tutor at the Writing Center if your paper has fallen into this category.

A failing (F) paper will be inadequate on one or more levels:  close, critical reading of a text or texts, focus, development, support for argument, organization, style, and grammar/mechanics.  The first five areas are especially important.  Papers can be too long or too short.  Please check in with me if your paper has fallen into this category.

I reserve the right to give your paper a grade of R.  This is not a failing grade, but I am requiring you to rewrite your paper because of problems on one or more levels:  close, critical reading of a text or texts, focus, development, support for argument, organization, style, and grammar/mechanics.  I may also assign this grade because of what I perceive to be insufficient effort or inadequate understanding of the assignment.  If your paper falls into this category, please see me to talk about ways to rework your paper.

Remember to submit your final draft to www.turnitin.com before you hand it in to me.  Let me know if you are having problems starting up your account or submitting your paper.  I’m always happy to walk you through the steps.

Please let me know if you are having problems with your paper or may have to hand in your paper late.  There will be a late penalty of one-third of a grade per day, but I will waive the penalty if you’ve talked to me ahead of time.

Lady Mary, Celebi, and the Ottoman Empire (part 2)

While I'm online, I thought I'd post a little bit of information about Lady Mary Wortley Montague and Evliya Celebi, our authors.  The picture above is Lady Mary in "Turkish costume."  I found it at the University of North Texas' exhibit on women writers.  This exhibit also included the following concise biography of Lady Mary:

http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/women/17th.htm#Lady%20Mary%20Wortley%20Montagu

This picture of a cover of a recent biography is probably a little more colorful!  Lady Mary, by the way, is particularly known for her early adoption of immunization.


Luminarium.org's biography is more extensive than the University of North Texas'.

http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/montagu/marybio.htm

This site also has links to Lady Mary's works in various genres:

http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/montagu/marybib.htm

Britain's Twickenham Museum also has information about Lady Mary in the context of her relationship with Alexander Pope:

http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=180

For a little more information about Pope, here is the same museum's page on him:

http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=19

Below is a picture of the Ottoman author Evliya Celebi:

Here is a link to a biography of Celebi:

http://www.mymerhaba.com/Evliya-%C3%87elebi-Traveler-in-Turkey-138.html

Among the places that Celebi visited was Gjirokastra, Albania:

http://www.gjirokastra.org/sub_links/help_save/help_visit_evliya_celebi.html

Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism has posted Celebi's description of Van Castle in the city of Van:

http://www.kultur.gov.tr/EN/BelgeGoster.aspx?17A16AE30572D313E603BF9486D4371D58DCB41B038C3F0E



Here is more information about Celebi's travels and his writing:

http://www.sabanciuniv.edu/ssbf/evliyacelebi/eng/?rota/rota.html

http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/evliya/seyahatname.html

Lady Mary, Celebi, & the Ottoman Empire (part 1)

En 202 could also be called "The Age of Empire and After."  Heart of Darkness, of course, is very much about Empire, and our upcoming reading Things Fall Apart was written as the former colonies in Africa were becoming independent.  With Friday's reading (the letters of British satirist & literati Lady Mary Wortley Montague and the travel writing of Evliya Celebi), we have moved back in time to the 17th & 18th century and to other perspectives on Empire.

First of all, both of our readings are about the Ottoman Empire, the successor to the Byzantine Empire, which had been in turn the successor to the Roman Empire.  The Ottoman Empire lasted from 1301 to 1923 and was primarily an Islamic empire although at times it was a surprisingly diverse and tolerant empire. 

Secondly, whereas Lady Mary Wortley Montague was British, Evliya Celebi was Turkish.  In other words, he was not a traveler from an outside empire coming to describe the colonies and define the Other.  He was writing about his own country.  Moreover, in Lady Mary's day, Britain was on the rise, but it was not as powerful as it would be in Conrad's time.

Below is a map of the Ottoman Empire in 1683, the year before Celebi's death.

 

This map from Baylor University shows the Ottoman Empire from 1798 to 1923:

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire would be known as the "Sick Man of Europe."  However, if you take a course in Early Modern history or literature, you will see that this empire was quite powerful then.  During the 16th and 17th century, the Ottomans attempted to take Vienna, and not until 1683 and the Battle of Vienna did they give up.

Here is Valdosta State University's map of Europe that will show you just how far into Europe Vienna and Austria are!

For more detailed information about the Ottoman Empire, see this link to the BBC's site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/ottomanempire_1.shtml

Korkut Ozgen has also put together an impressive site on this empire.  Here is a link to his pages on the empire's art and culture:

http://www.theottomans.org/english/art_culture/index.asp

Three or four years ago the Sackler Gallery had a wonderful exhibit on clothing and textiles from the Ottoman empire:

http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current/StyleStatus.htm

DC's Textile Museum has an online exhibit on Ottoman embroidery:

http://www.textilemuseum.org/fsg/index.html

However, after reading Lady Mary's letters, you may be curious about harems!  Here, too, is an article from the Topkapi Museum's web site.  This museum is affiliated with Bilkent University, a university in Turkey's capital, Ankara.

http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/harem.html

Here is a site on paintings of harem life, a popular Orientalist genre:

http://www.harem.org.uk/

I will close with an example of this genre, Theodore Chasseriau's "Scene of the Harem, Moorish Dame in Bath."  This painting dates from 1854.


As you may see from Renoir's painting from 1872, this genre of art included paintings of Frenchwomen dressed in "harem" costumes.

 

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, and Home & Exile (part 3)

Chinua Achebe's Home and Exile (2000) is certainly life writing, but it fits into a separate category from the ones I mentioned in class today.  His book is made up of three essays that began as lectures at Harvard.  These essays touch on not only his life but also his opinions about literature.  One cannot call these essays "simply" memoirs.

The first essay, "My Home Under Imperial Fire," begins in a way that makes the reader believe that he or she is about to read a traditional memoir.  Achebe recalls his entry into his home village, Ogidi, the home that his father, a missionary, had chosen to retire to.  Ironically, as Achebe later observes, the relative who had been watching the family home for Achebe's father still worshipped the village gods.  In fact, the relative built a shrine in the home that the former missionary had planned to retire to.  Achebe's father destroyed the shrine; however, overall, in his recollections of his home village, Achebe emphasizes the persistence of Igbo values and culture.  He underscores their influence on his own life and work.

 

 

[The first picture above is from a Catholic newspaper in Sacramento, CA.  The girls in the procession are part of an Igbo parish there.  The second picture above is from the library at Southern Illinois University and depicts a man playing a drum in an Igbo ritual.]

In the next section of "My Home Under Imperial Fire," Achebe moves on to a discussion of European writing about Africa and mid-20th century African literature.  He recalls his classmates' recoiling from Mister Johnson, an Englishman's novel about an African.  (As you can see, the book was later made into a film with Pierce Brosnan.)  Achebe's English professors had thought that the students would be interested in reading a novel set in Nigeria.

 

In the next essay, "The Empire Fights Back," you see that Achebe's criticism of Conrad is part of a cultural context.  It is amazing but not surprising to see the criticism that an early work of African literature, Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), received...from a Englishwoman who wrote a number of works set in Africa...and whose works have appeared on Masterpiece Theater!  Ironically, maybe not so ironically, as Achebe later notes, Nigerian students also complained about Tutuola's novel due to its lack of style and resemblance to a "folk tale."  Achebe then reveals that these students had not read the book!

However, Achebe also mentions authors and reviewers who were sympathetic towards African literature.  One was the poet Dylan Thomas who gave The Palm-Wine Drinkard a glowing review.  Another was F.J. Pedler who encouraged Africans to write about their continent.  

In the last essay, "Today, The Balance of Stories," Achebe contemplates the current state of African and other post-colonialist literature.  He praises writers such as Nadine Gordimer, Ama Ata Aidoo (an author from Ghana), and R.K. Narayan for the clarity of their vision and their willingness to avoid stereotypes.  On the other hand, he criticizes V.S. Naipaul and Buchi Emecheta for their eagerness to assimilate into mainstream British culture.  In particular, Achebe encourages writers to...in a way...cultivate their own garden--to depict what they have seen and experienced rather than to be ashamed of it and strive to write stereotypically. 

Midterm Study Guide for Spring 2008 -- part 1: Life Writing

This study guide will be the first of three or four that I will put up before our midterm on March 5 and 7.  To begin with, I will focus on the genre of life writing, a form of history that focuses on individuals' lives and a form of literature that provides evidence about individuals' real lives.  This genre is non-fiction, unlike plays, poems, short stories, or novels.  Documentary films that narrate a person's life story could be considered in this category, but life writing generally consists of autobiographies, memoirs, biographies, letters, and diaries.  Novels may take on the form of life writing, but this is simply a device to intrigue people or perhaps even to further mimesis (the imitation of reality).

Note that memoirs are about one part of one's life.  Autobiographies cover one's entire life (so far).

We have read two examples of life writing in class: Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative and Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  Both works are slave narratives, autobiographies written by former slaves to show the cruelty of slavery and argue for its abolition.  The slave narrative often encourages its readers to recognize what they have in common with the author.  Accordingly, Harriet Jacobs depicts her loving family who sheltered her as a young child, and Olaudah Equiano reminds his readers that he is a Christian like they are.

On the other hand, the contexts of Equiano's and Jacobs' autobiographies differ from each other.  Equiano's autobiography was published in 1789, during the year the Bastille fell and at the beginning of the anti-slavery movement.  Equiano may have been born in Africa (in present-day Nigeria), and his masters included Africans as well as Englishmen.  His autobiography was exceedingly popular and helped make him a wealthy man.  (I wonder if Benjamin Franklin read it.)  Jacobs' autobiography was published in 1861, the year that the Civil War began and two years before the Emancipation Proclamation.  The book was published anonymously, and in it, Jacobs referred to herself as Linda Brent.  Her authorship was not conclusively proven until the 1980s, and some sites continue to list Lydia Maria Child as her co-author.

Here is more information about the Interesting Narrative and Incidents respectively.

About The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano
-- Our anthology contains only part of this work.  The entire narrative is available online at  http://history.hanover.edu/texts/equiano/equiano_contents.html
-- The excerpt that our anthology includes begins with young Equiano being brought on board an English slave ship.  He is frightened, never having seen whites before, and expects that these strange spirits are going to kill him. 
-- In the next section, Equiano (who is 12) arrives in England and sees snow for the first time.  He believes that it is salt until he tastes it.  At this point, he is owned by Captain Pascal who will cheat him of his money and belongings.  Equiano befriends several Englishmen: a teenager named Dick who teaches him to read and a barber who teaches him religion and his trade.
-- Equiano is sold to another sea captain who brings him to the West Indies.  Eventually, he is bought by Robert King, a wealthy Quaker, but works for Captain Farmer, who helps him buy his freedom in an excerpt included in our anthology. 
-- Once free, Equiano works his way to England where he will become an antislavery activist and write his autobiography.

About Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
-- Harriet Jacobs begins her autobiography with a depiction of her happy, sheltered childhood.  Even though she and her family are slaves, she does not realize it until after her mother dies and she must work for her mistress.  We meet Jacobs' father, a strong-minded carpenter, and her grandmother, an industrious businesswoman.  Jacobs' grandmother will be the "friend of her youth."
-- Jacobs' first mistress appears to take into consideration that she is a child, letting her play.  However, she also borrows money that Jacobs' grandmother has saved in order to buy her family's freedom.  When the first mistress dies, she does not free her slaves as had been expected, but gives them to her family.  At this point, Jacobs is a growing girl, nearly a teenager.
-- After the death of her first mistress, Jacobs is given to the daughter of Doctor Flint, a "hoary-headed miscreant."  Jacobs' grandmother is sold at auction to an elderly relative of the late mistress who then frees her.  When Jacobs' father dies suddenly, she is not allowed to mourn but is forced to string together garlands for a party at the Flints' house.  Jacobs notes that whites criticized her father for his independence and strong-mindedness.
-- Doctor Flint attempts to seduce Jacobs, alternately threatening her and lavishing her with "kindness."  His wife is very much aware of this and is jealous.  Jacobs is repulsed by Doctor Flint and criticizes his wife for her jealousy and cruelty.  Nevertheless, the doctor tries to get Jacobs to sleep in his room when she works as his daughter's nurse.  Instead, Mrs. Flint demands that Jacobs sleep in her room.  She tries to find out how successful her husband's attempts at seduction have been.  (The doctor has raped other slave women before.  He sells them and their children when he loses interest in the women.  A slave who spoke about his partner's relationship with the doctor is savagely beaten.)
-- Doctor Flint builds a house for Jacobs who then informs him that she cannot live in this house because she is pregnant with another man's child.  This man is an unmarried white neighbor of the Flint's.  He appears to treat Jacobs kindly, and she is proud of his interest in her.  Later she is ashamed of this liaison. 
-- However, Jacobs must tell her grandmother that she is pregnant.  At first, the grandmother throws her out of her house.  Eventually she shows that she understands her granddaughter's situation but does not forgive her.
-- Several years later, after the birth of two children (Benny and Ellen), Jacobs decides to escape.  While making Doctor Flint think that she has fled to the North, she hides in a crawl space at her grandmother's house.  Benny and Ellen, in the meantime, are bought by their father who will eventually marry.
-- After seven years, Jacobs heads up North where she still must flee from first Doctor Flint and then his heirs.  When Emily Flint and her ne'er do well husband come to New York City to track Jacobs down, she must flee with her daughter to Massachusetts, and her friend Mrs. Bruce must buy her despite Jacobs' disapproval.  Only then are Jacobs and her children free.  At the end of Incidents, Jacobs and her children return to live with Mrs. Bruce.

Keep in mind that The Interesting Narrative and Incidents are only one type of life writing (autobiography/slave narrative).  Beginning with St. Augustine, other writers wrote spiritual autobiographies.  In the 17th century, Puritan Lucy Hutchinson wrote a biography of her husband who was executed by Charles II on his return to power.  In the 18th century, scandalous autobiographies were popular, but Benjamin Franklin wrote his autobiography in order to provide a model for readers.  Autobiographies and memoirs are also means of self-expression.  Some life writing was never intended to be published; in the 1660s Samuel Pepys kept his diary in code!  One wonders whether Anne Frank would have wanted her diary to be published if she had lived.

Life Writing

One genre that we'll be studying in EN 202 and that may seem new to you is life writing. Life writing includes autobiographies, biographies, journals, diaries, memoirs, oral histories, and even letters.  Although, at first glance, this genre seems to belong more to history or sociology, reading life history can shed light on the ways that literature shapes how we think and feel as well as influences on literature itself.  Some of the earliest novels like Aphra Behn's Oroonoko and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders even represent themselves as memoirs or autobiographies.  (A memoir covers a part of one's life whereas an autobiography treats the whole of one's life.)  And some life writing like Harriet Jacobs'  Incidents and Samuel Pepys' Diary is not only fascinating but well-written and worth studying as literature.  For example, how does Harriet Jacobs tell her life story in such a way that it appeals to her audience?!  How does she depict herself, Dr. Flint, and her grandmother?  (Note that although Pepys did not want people to read his diary, both Incidents and the Interesting Narrative were written to be read *and* to change people's minds about slavery.)

Here are some links on the study of life writing (or life history):

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/clhr/

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/english/usba/usba.html#field

For those of us who know (a little) French, this site is invaluable as it is associated with Philippe Lejeune, one of the literary scholars to focus on autobiography:

http://www.autopacte.org/

This list from California's Center for Autobiographic Studies explains the difference between autobiography and memoir as well as outlining the different forms of autobiography.  The audience is someone wanting to write and perhaps even publish an autobiography or memoir, but I think that you'll find this list to be useful.

http://www.storyhelp.com/autotypes.html

By the way, Beatrice Wood wrote her autobiography, I Shock Myself, when she was in her early nineties.  Almost ten years later she actively participated in a documentary on herself and her work.  Ms. Wood was also one of the models for Rose in Titanic.  Here is a link to a site with examples of her artwork:

http://artscenecal.com/ArtistsFiles/WoodB/WoodBFile/BWood.html

However, life writing is not simply published or unpublished autobiographies and memoirs.  Here is a link to a project from several universities in Hawaii.  It exemplifies the work that scholars are doing in this area.

http://www.hawaii.edu/biograph/cbrbiohiariyoshi.html

There is also the Legacy Project, a collection of correspondence between service members and their loved ones.

http://www.warletters.com/index.html

To read some of these letters, go to this site:

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/battlelines/index_good.html

This database includes women's letters and diaries from the 1600s to 1950:

http://www.alexanderstreet2.com/NWLDlive/

Here writers discuss their motivations for keeping journals--and preserving their life writing:

http://fraglit.com/impassio/k-essay.htm

http://fraglit.com/lwc/archives/38

A literary scholar writes about her experience reading the published diaries of 18th c. novelist Frances Burney D'Arblay:

http://www.jimandellen.org/burney/fanny.divergent.html

Lifewriting is also an important part of national identity:

http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/segan/CANLIN.HTM

Of course, we must not forget biography and collections of biographies.  Lucy Hutchinson's biography of her late husband continues to intrigue literary scholars:

http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng211/Lucy%20Hutchinson.htm

I've cited a number of works by women, but one of the most famous literary biographies is James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson...and earlier Johnson himself wrote a collection of literary biographies:
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/Guide/lives.html

I really am only scratching the surface, but I think that adding life writing to EN 202 gives us a much fuller and richer idea of world literature.  If you know French, Spanish, or another language, I would be interested in seeing what you might find in the area of life writing!