Washington Irving - An American in Europe

As I approach many of these eighteenth century and early nineteenth century texts on my list, I often don't know what to expect. Is this going to be dry? Is it going to be entertaining? Will I wonder why I had to read it, when I'm done, or will its uniqueness and significance jump out at me? With so many of these texts, all I know about them, before going into them, is that they're part of the American "canon" and I have to be familiar with them if I'm specializing in American literature. What I'm trying to say, in a professional and tactful way, is that sometimes I have no idea whether I'll actually like the next book I'm reading. So, reading selections from Washington Irving's The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published in 1819, was delightful, both because he's a humorous, pleasant writer, and because so many provocative comments about British relations with America (officially only an independent country for about 40 years, when this book was published) jumped out at me.

The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Narrated by Herself

I will only briefly touch on my month and a half, unplanned blog hiatus to say that I was very busy with my coursework! Now that my last graduate courses EVER are over, I'm finally able to focus on my comps reading. Since finishing my final course paper last Tuesday (August 6), I've finished 3 books that I'll be creating posts for very soon. I'd like to start with The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.

The captivity narrative was a popular one in eighteenth century Puritan literature. The general trope of such a narrative (always purported to be factual) is that a tribe of native Americans descends upon a poor, unsuspecting Christian settlement, pillages and kills many innocent European settlers, and takes some captives. The captive European settler is eventually returned to colonial civilisation at the end of the narrative, and the narrative he/she produces is told in the first person, as documentation of his or her personal experiences during this harrowing experience. I'd like to start by saying that I don't mean to suggest, at any point, that the experience of being captured/kidnapped and separated from your family is NOT traumatic. While the rhetoric in these captivity narratives of "the savage barbarians attacked our settlement and we did NOTHING WRONG!" is a little tiresome, the individual experience of Mary Rowlandson, who was captured and separated from her children would certainly be terrifying.

Wallace Stevens and the Earth Mother

Though I'm trying to read the authors on my CAE in chronological order, Wallace Stevens, whom I studied in class this week, jumps forward from William Bradford by about 300 years, and from Walt Whitman by about 80 years. However, since I was studying him for my class on sound, noise and silence in American literature, I tried to form some impressions of Stevens' poetry that would assist me in fitting him into American literature as a whole. 

Wallace Stevens was a Modernist poetry who wrote in the first half of the twentieth century. The Modernist tendencies of his work--it avoids, or even rejects, realism, and experiments with form, rhythm, and metre to break away from traditional poetic conventions--help, I think, when we formulate our expectations of his work. I think we all, whether consciously or not, approach our reading with certain expectations of what the reading experience will be like, and if we approach the poetry of Stevens with the expectation that, with a little close reading, we'll be able to form a fairly coherent interpretation of his poems, we are (or at least I am) bound to be thwarted. Instead, I find it helpful, when reading Modernist poetry, to think about how the work is self-consciously being not traditional.

Part of my favourite poem that we studied, "The Idea of Order at Key West," is below (visit the link for the full poem. Tip for reading poetry - read it out loud. You'll get much more out of reading it out loud once than you will reading it silently): 

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.   

The water never formed to mind or voice,   

Like a body wholly body, fluttering

Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion   

Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,   

That was not ours although we understood,   

Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.   

The song and water were not medleyed sound   

Even if what she sang was what she heard,   

Since what she sang was uttered word by word.

It may be that in all her phrases stirred   

The grinding water and the gasping wind;   

But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.   

The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea

Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.   

Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew   

It was the spirit that we sought and knew   

That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea   

That rose, or even colored by many waves;   

If it was only the outer voice of sky

And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,   

However clear, it would have been deep air,   

The heaving speech of air, a summer sound   

Repeated in a summer without end

And sound alone. But it was more than that,   

More even than her voice, and ours, among

The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,   

Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped   

On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres   

Of sky and sea.

                      It was her voice that made   

The sky acutest at its vanishing.   

She measured to the hour its solitude.   

She was the single artificer of the world

In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,   

Whatever self it had, became the self

That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,   

As we beheld her striding there alone,

Knew that there never was a world for her   

Except the one she sang and, singing, made. 

 

What I love about this poem, particularly this first half of it, which I've reproduced here, is its rejection of the romantic poetic trope of rhapsodizing over the lovely woman who "belongs" in nature. A common trope in English literature involves characterizing female characters or figures as somehow more "in touch" with, or connected to, nature than men are. To be naturally at home in a picturesque, natural environment is to be feminine; to have an antagonistic relationship with "land" that must be conquered is to be masculine. The woman who lovingly seems to "understand" the plants and flowers surrounding her, the woman who seems as if she can somehow communicate with nature. This link between women and nature, so common in traditional English poetry and prose, occurs, ultimately, to establish the woman's maternality (whether already realized, or merely potential). Why is the woman so "in touch" with nature in ways that the masculine cannot be? Because nature is fertile, and so is the woman, ideally. The growth and new life associated with nature serves to accentuate the ways in which woman, through her own ability to produce life, is different from man. 

 

Clearly, characterizing women through their fictive connection to nature (we'll call it the Earth Mother trope) is problematic for a few reasons:

 

1.   It's a way of representing a woman as, ultimately, an archetype and not as a character with any kind of complex subjectivity.
2.  . It's a way of reducing women to her most "essential" female characteristics -- i.e. the maternal. I think it's easy to see how making this the ultimate measure of femininity and personhood perpetuates rigid gender roles that confine women to the domestic space.
3.  . The "charming" connection of the feminine to nature can be a means of infantalizing the woman -- she has more in common with animals and flowers than with "real" humans (men).

To sump up: benevolently oppressive.

So, I just love how Stevens thwarts this trope in "The Idea of Order"; while the woman  in this poem remains a figure about whom we know very little, she can't simply be reduced to the natural landscape surrounding her: "For she was the maker of the song she sang. / The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea/ Was merely a place by which she walked to sing." In other words, she is more than the sea. Rather than anthropomorphizing the sea to forge a connection between the woman and the sea, Stevens subjugates the sea to the woman, as merely a setting for her to produce her song ("the song and water were not medleyed sound"). No goofy, romanticized "she sings the song of the ocean, and look how lovely it is to say that the woman is the sea" for Stevens.

While I'm not at all convinced that Stevens is deliberately making a proto-feminist argument here, I do think he's rejecting poetic conventions here to highlight, potentially, the absurdity of equating and reducing a person to her surroundings: "When she sang, the sea, / Whatever self it had, became the self / That was her song, for she was the maker." All this poetic language that turns object of nature into people, he says, that's not real. The ocean doesn't have a self, but if you insist, it's subjugated to her. She's the one with the personhood here.

She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she. The song and water were not medleyed sound Even if what she sang was what she heard. Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred The grinding water and the gasping wind; But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew It was the spirit that we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea That rose, or even colored by many waves; If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, However clear, it would have been deep air, The heaving speech of air, a summer sound Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that, More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres Of sky and sea. It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. She measured to the hour its solitude. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15749#sthash.AlshoDdu.dpuf

She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she. The song and water were not medleyed sound Even if what she sang was what she heard. Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred The grinding water and the gasping wind; But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew It was the spirit that we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea That rose, or even colored by many waves; If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, However clear, it would have been deep air, The heaving speech of air, a summer sound Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that, More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres Of sky and sea. It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. She measured to the hour its solitude. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15749#sthash.AlshoDdu.dpuf

She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she. The song and water were not medleyed sound Even if what she sang was what she heard. Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred The grinding water and the gasping wind; But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew It was the spirit that we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea That rose, or even colored by many waves; If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, However clear, it would have been deep air, The heaving speech of air, a summer sound Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that, More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres Of sky and sea. It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. She measured to the hour its solitude. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15749#sthash.AlshoDdu.dpuf

Walt Whitman and Not Eating Meat

Excuse time - my lack of posts in the last week and a half comes from me being extremely behind in my coursework, after making a journey to Victoria, BC to present a paper at the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English Conference on The Life and Adventures of Nat Love (a fascinating autobiography of a 19th century black cowboy that I'll be devoting a post to in the near future). While I'm almost up to speed on my class reading, the busyness has left no time for comps reading. Fortunately, one of my courses this semester explores the rhetoric of sound, noise, voice, music, and silence in 19th and 20th century American writing, and hence, some of the reading for this course overlaps with what I'll have to read for my CAE. This week, the "overlap" text is poetry from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

Word Prison

I'm already veering from my rigid "blogging my CAE reading" formula, but this is something that I think is important for me to remember as I try to tackle what feels like an overwhelming workload sometimes. It's funny that no matter how many times I try and fail (and I've been trying and failing at this since undergrad) to spend 10 or 12 dedicated hours a day reading, comprehending, interpreting, and staying excited about the vast wealth of material I have to go through, I still try to do it. As much as I know that human beings need breaks to re-energize and restore themselves, both for the quality of their work and for their own happiness, I still go to my school library with way more work than I can expect to accomplish in a day, and tell myself I'm staying there till it's done. Do I ever succeed, or even come close? No. Then I go home, exhausted with the effort, and more stressed out than I was before because I'm overwhelmed by a sense of not having gotten anything done. Have I gotten some things done? Always. But if I went there with the goal of "doing it all," and then don't do it all, it feels like I've failed to accomplish the goal.

Of Plymouth Plantation, Book I - The Puritan Settlers Come to America and Steal Corn

Of Plymouth Plantation: ed. Francis Murphy

     I hope not to break up many of the books I discuss into multiple posts, but since this first book on my list is proving to be rather slow-going (and since Book II seems to indicate a dramatic shift in genre and focus), I’ve decided to give Book I of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation its own post. Book I includes the first ten chapters of this seventeenth century historical text.

     First, let’s start with some background. Of Plymouth Plantation is essentially a journal of the Puritans’ colony in Plymouth, Massachussetts, written by one of its initial governors, William Bradford. The journal covers the initial journey of the pilgrims to the colonies from Europe on the famous, celebrated Mayflower and relates the various difficulties and struggles the pilgrims encountered as they set up their colony. The Puritans made the hazardous sea voyage from Europe to America because they disliked many rituals and practices of the Church of England, but were persecuted for their attempt to establish a church of their own that conformed with their own sense of true Christian faith. The points of religious disagreement, from what I’ve read, are extremely complex and I’m not going to go into them here. The important part, for the purpose of how the text unfolds and what it means for American history and literature, is that the Puritans made this voyage (after an eleven-year self-imposed exile in Holland, which allowed them religious freedom but wasn’t so great to live in for reasons only vaguely explained by the text) with the cemented belief that God was on their side and that whatever happened as a result of this risky mission was God’s will.

         

The Beginning of the Long Haul

Welcome to my blog. I am a doctoral candidate in English literature at a large university in Canada, and I am about to tackle the "canon" of American literature in preparation for my field exam in approximately seven months' time. The practical purpose of this blog is to give me both space and impetus to concisely organize my thoughts on the many texts I have to read over the next seven months. I'm hoping more generally that I can engage in thought-provoking dialogues about my reading, about the reasons particular texts have continued to be influential, and about the potentially exclusionary nature of literary "canons."

I'd like to give you a more specific idea of what this "exam" consists of. The comprehensive area exam ("CAE" or "comp," for short) is a test that requires you to prove, at the graduate level, that you're well-versed enough in the influential texts of your chosen field to engage in academic criticism and to eventually teach it to undergraduate students. The test consists of both oral and written components, and generally, the exam requires you to discuss the significance of particular texts, theories, and literary movements within your chosen field. Though I love all kinds of literature, and choosing a specific field to specialize in forces me to rule out many things I love, I've decided to take my CAE in American literature.  In particular, as I prepare for the exam, I hope to investigate and create connections between the texts I read to develop an overall theory of what makes American literature distinctive from literatures of other countries.