>> Unknown: All right,
I've
got a few more things to say
about Uncle Tom's Cabin,
so let's get started.
I want to give you some
sense today of what happens
to the you know, the meanings
of this novel as it is,
as it works it's way further and
further into popular culture.
Close the door.
[ door closing ]
[ background noise ]
So, if you have your book you
can take a look at page 583
and if you don't,
you can just listen.
This is the moment when
Tom addresses Legree,
near the climax of the novel.
Actually if you go
down, the bottom of 582.
Tom looked up at his master and
answered master, if you was sick
or in trouble or dying
and I could save ye,
I'd give you my heart's blood.
And if taking every
drop of blood
in this poor old body would
save your precious soul,
I'd give them freely as
the lord gave his for me.
Oh master, don't bring this
great sin on your soul.
It will hurt you
more than twill me.
Do the worst you can.
My troubles will be over
soon, but if ye don't repent,
yours won't never end.
And this is about three
chapters before the end,
three pages before the end
of a chapter that's
called, The Martyr.
And this is a moment you know,
that's sometimes problematic
for a modern reader,
particularly
who might not share
Tom's and Stowe's belief
in Christian salvation.
You might have trouble
accepting Tom's
and Stowe's certainty
about this.
That Tom's troubles
are about to be over
but Legree's will never end
right, because he is due
to have everlasting
perdition and damnation.
A modern reader is probably more
interested in another aspect
of this, which we might call
unending psychological torments.
So we're interested in the kind
of psychology of a character
like Tom, the psychology
of a character like Legree.
In a way, readers have more
readily identified some
of the canonized male authors
from this period of life,
Poe and Hawthorn and
Melboe [assumed spelling],
as writers who were
interested in psychology
in the kind of more
modern sense.
Henry James would claim this.
He said, the fine thing in
Hawthorn is that he cared
for the deeper psychology
and that in his way,
he tried to become
familiar with it.
And I think that Poe
and Melboe also care
about what James calls the
deeper psychology and the way
that they go about dramatizing
it is to use the conventions
of Gothic They use these
conventions to probe it.
But I think we think
that Stowe is only
about Christian salvation
and Christian belief and not
at all interested in
this kind of psychology,
then I think we are
mistaking what's she doing
at the end of a novel.
I think she too, as we've seen,
uses Gothic inventions
to probe precisely.
She is interested in
what we might think
of as psychological torment.
Right? So that Cassie's
successful hoax,
directed in Legree,
could only work
because Legree is inwardly
tormented and tormented in a way
that we would think of as coming
out of his feelings of guilt.
The episode suggests
more than that.
It suggests that there
are people like Legree,
who's psychological
torments are so great,
who are so depraved you
might say in psychology,
have fallen so far into evil
that they can no longer be
saved by Christian feeling.
It's too late for
people like Legree.
There are limits in other
words, Stowe seems to suggest,
to what Christianity can do.
Although she quickly
pulls away from that.
Right? The career of
Cassie demonstrates that.
Stowe turns away from Gothic
at the end of a novel,
as suggested lax time and back
towards here particular brand
of Christian sentimental fiction
and so finally, as we suggested
at the very end but
I want to reiterate,
the form that the novel finally
takes is the form of a sermon.
Or perhaps we might say
that what we realize is
that what we've been reading
is a sermon by other means.
Right? A sermon that uses
fiction to dramatize it and in
that sense, we might think
that it has profound affinities
with other things that we've
seen earlier in the course.
Perhaps Wigglesworth's,
Day of Doom, right,
which has of those kind of
inter textual references
and clearly suggests
to you that it is
in some sense preaching
a sermon to you.
Right? So above all, Uncle Tom's
Cabin is a Christian novel.
It is a Christian
novel that's also,
as a result of it's
being a Christian novel,
profoundly against slavery.
OK? The stance of being
against slavery comes
out of Stowe's belief
in Christianity
and it also links her to
other female domestic writers
of the, the period.
But you might say
there's a difference
between what she shows
us and what a lot
of these other female
domestic novelist tend to show.
They tend to show that
if you are Christian,
if you lead a good life,
you will in fact receive
some kind of worldly success.
That's not what Stowe
was interested in.
Stowe was profoundly not
interested in the worldly
and in fact, her two most
exemplary Christian characters,
Ava and then Tom, proved to die.
Right? In and following that
template of Christ's life.
And you might say, the thing
that she finally does, Stowe,
is to go after slavery in
profoundly Christian terms.
In other words, what's
wrong with slavery is
that in some deep
way, it is a sin.
And so if you are a Christian
and you perpetrate slavery
or perpetuate it or even
participate in it at all,
you are committing a sin from
which you need to be redeemed.
And I think there's something
about that then that's really
what finally distinguishes her
from Hawthorn, Melboe,
Poe, writers like that.
In other words, Stowe I think,
is interested in psychology
and she's interested in
Christianity, but she isn't
at the very end, interested
in thinking about this
in any way ironically.
Right? She uses irony, we've
seen in her narrative voice,
to push forward her
Christian agenda.
But at the end there is no irony
whatsoever, no second thinking,
no second guessing, about
Tom's final victory,
as that chapter is called.
Right? And that kind of a
moment I think doesn't exist
in the works of Poe or
Hawthorn or Melboe, so that part
of what's distinctive
about Stowe is she can regard
Tom's triumph absolutely
without irony and that's part
of the moral fabric of the book.
Now one of the things that
happens and you can see
that here in this illustration
from a later edition right.
I mean this is Tom's
ultimate moment here
and we have you know, Christ
appearing here basically.
In that final moment.
That element starts to get lost
very quickly from adaptations
of Uncle Tom and I want to
just give you a sense of this.
Because this has something to do
with something that's been a
theme for us, I think at least
since Winthrop, which is that
writers create certain kinds
of meanings, certain kinds
of symbols, they create text,
they release these texts,
they have a relationship
these texts do, to something
that we've called the
horizon of expectations.
A writer makes a decision about
how to pitch his or her texts
and symbols and literary
creations,
but ultimately the meaning
of those things is going
to be determined in
large part by readers.
Right? And meanings will
circulate throughout
the culture.
So that Winthrop creates the
idea of the city on the hill,
which he means to
be a figuration
for the ideal relation between
a community and individuals
in which the communal
quickly comes first.
Immediately, it comes first.
Individual is supposed to be
subsumed by the community.
The whole point of the
sermon is that the city
on the hill will exist
if we really believe
in the bonds of Christian love.
Body politic that
is linked together
by the ligaments
of Christ's love.
By the time you get
to Ronald Reagan,
who considers himself
a Christian,
we he's nevertheless a
different kind of Christian
and he could appropriate
Winthrop's symbol
and turn it's meanings
almost completely around.
So that it becomes
a way of suggesting
that if the individual
pursues his or her own version
of the good, these communal
benefits will follow afterwards.
It really uses the
logic of less a fair.
Winthrop would have
been appalled
When we read the Scarlet Letter,
we're going to see exactly that.
I want you to think
of it in those terms.
Right? Here is a woman who
is caught committing adultery
and to be and the way
she is punished is
that the male you know, the
puritan fathers in Boston,
decide to make a show of her.
They put her up on a scaffold,
which is like a stage.
They pin an A onto her chest,
to stand for adulterer.
Every time you look at her
you're supposed to looked
at the A. It's meant to
aface her individuality,
to typecast her, to make her
you might say, into an actor
and something akin to, a
social medieval mystery play.
But at the very beginning
you might say,
the meaning of that A starts
to slip and slide and change.
Right? Hester is allowed
or I suppose it's a version
of Hester is you know,
as Christ was forced
to carry his own cross, Hester
is forced to sew her own A.
But she's clever and
she's a good seamstress
and she's good a embroidery
and so she puts this extremely
lavish version of the A
on herself and people
are drawn to this
and the readers eye is
drawn to it by Hawthorn.
And as you'll remember,
as the novel progresses,
the meaning of the A starts
to become multiple,
it starts to change.
The official meaning
therefore starts
to give way to something else.
And so that Hawthorn's novel
can be read in large part,
as a sort of study in
what happens to meanings.
How they evolve as they
circulate in culture.
Right? And you could say
by the end, the very thing
that the puritan fathers
want Hester to do, to repent,
is actually the opposite
of what she does.
But the fact of the A
actually prevents them
from seeing what's
really going on with her.
We'll talk about
this more on Monday.
But I hope, and I hope, my
hope is that having you know,
been through about three
quarters of the course now,
you will look at the Scarlet
Letter in a way that's different
than you might have looked at
it not only at the beginning
of the term, but
whenever you read it last.
Similar things happen to
the meanings of Uncle Tom.
I already suggested
this to you last time.
So the novel is serialized
in 1851, it's scheduled
for book form in 1852.
It's already a wild success.
And from 1852 on, into
the twentieth century,
there are adaptations of Uncle
Tom's Cabin, almost continuously
on the American stage
and they're among the most
popular theatrical productions
that any theater
company could stage.
If you want to have a hit,
stage Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Still by the way,
never earned any money
from these adaptations, because
and we talked a little bit
about the copyright law and
even the domestic copyright law,
those are that didn't really
apply to the stage production.
Right? So she didn't
earn anything from this.
So even before the novel
is published in 1852,
it's adapted for the stage.
Uncle Tom's Cabin or as it is
and the subtitle is
the southern Uncle Tom,
is produced on January 5,
1852, at the Baltimore Museum
and then there is this one,
which is in August of 1852,
by CW Taylor, at Purdy's
[assumed spelling] National
Theater, here in New York.
Purdy's Theater was down on
Tavern [assumed spelling]
Street, just a few blocks south
of Bowery [assumed spelling]
and it was already known
as a kind of popular place
where you could often see black
faced minstrel shows being
performed and TD Rice was one
of the most famous
of these performers.
According to the scholar Sara
Mere, who's studied this stuff,
she says that Taylor's was a
typical sensation melodrama
and after peace meant to fill
a space in a program rather
than to cause controversy.
It played on different nights
alongside a nautical drama,
a tightrope walker and a black
face burlesque of Othello
And it was described by
a newspaper in New York,
the New York Herald as
quote, an exaggerated mockery
of southern institutions
calculated to poison the minds
of our youth with the
principles of abolitionism.
And it closed after only
eleven performances.
Now, listen to that.
It's a newspaper
in New York saying
that the youth were
being poisoned
by the principles
of abolitionism.
There's a [inaudible] and
this shouldn't surprise you I
suppose, I mean New York was not
clearly in favor of abolition
and there was, there were
factions in New York,
particularly those who
were identified as kind
of nativists sentiments, who
were sympathetic to the south
and were profoundly racist.
I'll show you a clip from Martin
Scorsese [assumed spelling]
gangs of New York, that not
only shows you you know,
how people took liberties with
Uncle Tom's Cabin but also
that gets that point across.
The first version that did
succeed was commissioned
by DC Howard who was the manager
of the Troy New York Museum
and he wanted to feature his
four year old daughter Cordelia
[assumed spelling],
as little Ava.
So Howard played St.
Clair, his wife played Topsy
and their version of Uncle Tom's
Cabin was written by his cousin,
George Akin, who played
the part of George Harris
and got forty bucks
and a gold watch
for writing the adaptation.
Akin's version is reasonably
faithful to the novel.
It adds a few Yankee
characters for comic relief,
but a lot of the dialog
simply comes out of the book.
The Troy production
apparently was seen
by 25,000 people
in Troy, New York.
The total population of Troy
at the time was 30,000 people.
So that's that.
It moved onto New York City
and the Howard family
continued performing this play
for the next thirty years, until
1887 when Howard himself died
and when little Cordelia is,
who's been playing the lead
since her fourth birthday,
celebrated her thirty
fifth birthday.
Not so little anymore.
One of the set pieces in Akin's
adaptation was Eliza crossing
the Ohio, right.
So this is one of
the big moments
that people always
wanted to see.
How are they going
to do this scene.
And subsequent dramatizations
of this by Akin, by Howard
and other people, became
more and more elaborate.
So the novel really doesn't
have Eliza being pursued dogs,
but dogs became dayrager
[assumed spelling] later on
and in fact, later productions
would argue, would advertise
that they had you
know, real blood hounds
and then really big blood
hounds and just a lot
of really big blood hounds, you
know, double mammoth Uncle Tom,
I guess that had
really big dogs.
[ laughter ]
And eventually you have these
adaptations closing with Tom,
sometimes with actual machinery,
in a kind of golden carriage
that was ascending upwards
and you would see Ava there
and a father waiting for
him, sometimes possibly
at a certain point
accompanied by an image
of Abraham Lincoln you
know, that kind of thing.
But gradually what happens
to this is that more and more
of the elements of minstrel
shows enter into performances
of the play, particularly in
the characterizations of Tom
and one other character.
Who do you suppose?
Who seems right for
characterization
by black faced performers
or as that kind
of you know, is a
butt of comedy.
Topsy. Yes.
Topsy. So you would go
to see the, so by the end
of the century these things
became less and less adaptations
and what they were referred
to derogatively as Tom shows.
And it's on that basis that
the character of Uncle Tom,
gets formed into this
extreme, gets transformed
into this extremely negative
stereotype of African Americans.
It becomes a symbol of
black obsequiousness rather
than idealized Christian
humility.
And you might say one of
the things that happens
to Stowe's story is
that it's drained
of both it's Christian imagery
and therefore it's moral power
and just becomes
kind of melodrama.
I wanted to give you a
sense of this, so I'm going
to show you some clips.
The first two clips come from a
1903 silent adaptation of this.
The first one is Eliza's escape.
The second one is
the death of Tom.
And then there's another clip,
which is from the 1927 version
which gets at some of these
minstrel, minstrel type motifs.
Yes?
[ music ]
OK, you get the point.
This is the death of Tom.
[ music ]
OK, you get the idea.
Now this one is a later, it
has higher production values,
let's look at the stagy ones.
But you can see, it
just, it shows you,
it'll give you a
sense of how the kind
of minstrel show motif's worked
their way into [inaudible].
[ music ]
OK, so you get the idea.
And you can see how that
what would happen is
that in these productions,
it would be little moments
like that that would start
to become what the shows were
about rather than
the larger plot.
All right, this is
from Gangs of New York.
It'll give you a
sense in the way
in which productions
were dramatized in scene.
>> Unknown: The divisions
between us.
This war must cease.
North and south must
stand united.
[ cheering ]
Mister Legree, lay
down your hood.
Miss Eliza, join hands
with Mister Shelby.
And Topsy, dear little Topsy,
cradle Uncle Tom's head.
>> Unknown: There
are certain things
that are inaccurate historically
about Martin Scorsese's
[assumed spelling] movie,
but it does a pretty good job
of dramatizing certain aspects
of life in the [inaudible].
If you're interested in reading
a little bit more about going
to plays is actually like, there
are wonderful pieces by Irving
and by Whitman, about
the experience
of theater in that time.
All right, let's
turn to Hawthorn now
and in some senses
by way of contrast.
The writings of Hawthorn
and Melville bring
to a climax a tradition of
writing that we've been looking
at for a while now and
that we tend to refer
to as American romance.
Right? So we would include
in this most likely,
Charles Brocton [assumed
spelling] Brown,
Washington Irving, Edgar
Allen Poe, Emerson and Whitman
and Thoreau writing in their
slightly different way.
But in fiction we're thinking
about for us, it's Brown,
Irving, Poe, Hawthorn
and Melville.
And one of the things,
as the quote makes clear,
one of the things that Hawthorn
is doing is deliberately setting
himself over and against the
tradition of domestic fiction,
for which he had
mostly contempt.
America is not wholly given
over to a damned mob
of scribbling women.
I should have no
chance of success,
while the public taste is
occupied with their trash
and should be ashamed of
myself if I did succeed.
All right?
Both Hawthorn and Poe,
saw to create a new
kind of reading public.
I mean Poe, in addition to
being short story writer,
was also a journalist and critic
and he was really doing
everything that he could
to mold public taste,
according, to have a kind
of greater appreciation
of the aesthetic values
that are within text.
Hawthorn sought to create a form
of writing that would be thought
of as more elevated
than typical prose.
And that didn't have the
association with the world
of domesticity and this mob
of scribbling women,
that the novel did.
So he called his form romance.
And he called and so he referred
to the four completely
book lined fictions,
the Scarlet Letter, The
House of the Seven Gables,
[inaudible] Romance and the
Marble Fawn, as romances.
And he's using it
in contradistinction
to the term novel, deliberately.
And in the preface to the
House of the Seven Gables,
he suggests the reason why.
If you have your
anthology it's on page 1493.
He says this.
When a writer calls
his work a romance,
it need hardly be
observed that he wishes
to claim a certain latitude,
both as to it's freedom
and material, which he
would not have felt entitled
to assume had he professed
to be writing a novel.
The latter form of
composition is presumed to aim
at a very minute fidelity,
not merely to the possible
but to the probable and ordinary
course of man's experience.
The former, while
as a work of art,
it must rigidly subject
itself to laws
and while it sins unpardonably
so far it may swerve aside
from the truth of the human
heart, has fairly a right
to present that truth under
circumstances to a great extent
of the writer's own
choosing or creation.
If he think fit, he may
also, he may so man also,
he may so manage his
atmospherical medium as to bring
out or mellow the
light and deepen
and enrich the shadows
of the picture.
He will be wise no doubt
to make a very moderate use
of the privileges here
stated and especially
to mingle the marvelous
rather as a slight delicate
and evanescent flavor
rather than as any portion
of the actual substance of the
dish offered to the public.
He can hardly be said however,
to commit a literary crime,
even if he disregard
this caution.
Now I want you to look at
this, since you've just sort
of done this for as
your second paper.
I want you to look at
this as a piece of prose
and tell me how it works.
[ no speaking ]
It's very typical
of Hawthorn's prose.
So if we figure out something,
if we figure out how this works,
you'll have a leg up when
you're trying to figure
out how not only the two stories
that we read for today were,
but The Scarlet Letter.
So, anything that
anybody notices?
Yes?
[ inaudible ]
As a dish.
OK, good. So show me,
let's just nail it down.
Where is the theatrical stuff?
[ inaudible ]
Picture.
[ inaudible ]
Yes, I think it's both.
I think you know, it's
both of those things.
You could say, manages
atmospherical medium,
you could certainly say
it's like a stage manager,
setting up his own
[inaudible] and choosing
to raise or lower the lights.
You could also think of
pictures like I don't know,
a good example would be Carvagio
[assumed spelling], you make use
of cariscuru [assumed
spelling] right, the shifting
from light into darkness.
So he's clearly evoking
both of those kinds,
that kind of pictorial
imagination,
whether on stage or in picture.
OK, what was the
second metaphor?
>> Unknown: Food.
>> Unknown: OK, so food.
Actual substance of the
dish offered to the public.
OK, that's good.
So there are two
governing metaphor's here.
Great. Anything else?
Let's go back to the beginning.
When a writer calls
his work a romance,
it need hardly be
observed that he wishes
to acclaim a certain latitude,
both as to it's fashion
and material which he would
not have felt himself entitled
to assume had he professed
to be writing a novel.
So how does that sentence work?
What's that?
[ no speaking ]
It's very close to, I don't
need to tell you that.
Paralypsis [assumed spelling].
Good. What does it do for him?
Yes?
>> Unknown: He still needs
to
define what he means by romance.
[Inaudible] define what
romance is not [inaudible].
>> Unknown: OK, so he's
defining things negatively.
That's a good thing to
notice about Hawthorn.
He's going to start
off with a term.
When a writer calls
his work a romance.
But look what he actually
goes and says about it.
It need hardly be observed.
So the impersonal construction
creates the veneer of authority.
It need hardly be observed.
The paralypsis probably is there
to heighten the sense
of authority.
That he wishes to claim what?
A certain latitude.
That's a paradoxical phrase.
Because it's not certain at all.
Right? A certain latitude.
It seems like it's certain,
but then when you think
about it, how much latitude?
A certain latitude
both as to it's fashion
and material he would
not have felt himself
to assume had he professed
to be writing a novel.
Right? So amtiphosis
[assumed spelling].
It's one you know, one
thing compared to the other.
The latter form of composition,
the novel, is presumed to aim
at a very minute fidelity.
Now again, look at this.
It's a passive construction,
so in this sense there's a way
in which we could say it's meant
to again, create this veneer
of a kind of authenticity
or authority,
but by whom is it presumed?
I mean, where's the
agency there?
It's presumed to aim at
a very minute fidelity,
not merely to the possible but
to the probable and ordinary.
So it's not just the possible,
but the probable and ordinary.
This is what the novel
is supposed to do.
The former and look at the way
in which the prose breaks right.
It's constantly qualified,
it's hedged The former,
while as a work of art, it must
rigidly subject itself to laws
and while it sins unpardonably
so as far as it may swerve away
from the truth of
the human heart.
All right so we assume
that it's a work of art
and therefore it has to
subject itself to laws.
And there's the implication I
guess the novel presumes this,
so it still has to, it
still has to concern itself
with the truth of
the human heart.
One of the, I mean,
and why use this word?
Sins unpardonably.
That's the kind of word
that Stowe might use, right.
Why would you use the
language of sinning?
So far as it may swerve
aside from the truth
of the human heart,
has fairly a right.
What does that mean?
Sort of a right or
in all fairness?
Has fairly a right to present
that truth under circumstances.
How many? How much?
Too a great extent.
Other writers don't
choose an [inaudible].
What have we gotten to?
How much? If he think fit also,
he may so manage his
atmospherical medium
as to bring out [inaudible].
OK we've got that.
He will be wise, no doubt,
to make a very moderate use
of the privileges here stated.
And especially to mingle
the marvelous rather
as a slight delicate and
evanescent flavor rather
than as any portion
of the actual.
Now what's at stake in the
[inaudible] of these two things?
Sinning unpardonably
and the dish metaphor.
He's openly contesting
the novel,
saying that the romance
does something different.
So he's just distinguishing
the romance.
But why use that?
And why use that?
I've already given you a hint.
Who you think is in these terms?
Sinning unpardonably
and who cooks?
I mean isn't cooking is a big
part of domestic life right.
I mean, who cooks in
Uncle Tom's Cabin?
There's Mamie and Dinah.
There's a certain way in which
we might say the domestic
novelist have a fire hydrant
and Hawthorn is peeing on it.
[ laughter ]
Right? I mean, the sum
text of this is you know,
he will appropriate
their language of sinning
but we are going to turn it to
the artistic or the aesthetic,
which they claim not to
be interested in doing.
And we can do domestic
imagery better than they can.
Right? Here we go.
Mingle it rather than slight
delicate and evanescent flavor
than as any portion
of the actual dish
offered to the public.
So you might say he's
taking their ground
and appropriating
it for himself.
He oops, he can hardly
be said however,
to commit a literary crime,
even if he discard this caution.
So the question I
leave, I ask you now is,
how much of the marvelous
does the writer get to use?
According to Hawthorn here.
[ no speaking ]
How much marvelous is good?
Yes?
[ inaudible ]
Exactly. He can use
as much as he wants.
So who is the arbitrar
of what the right amount?
The author, right.
One of the things I want you to
see here that hawthorn is doing,
is creating a space for
romance that's going
to have it inhabit
something that we might think
of as the aesthetic and
that is closer to idea now
of what the literary is.
That means propping
up the author.
Right? It's part of the project
that we saw going on in Irving,
too, when he makes use of
the guise of the historian.
Right? He tries to take some of
the authority of the historian
and then by mixing
it with local facts
that most historians would
know and by certain things
that he invents, he
ultimately creates himself
to be his own authority.
Right? He's pushing in
other words, the authority
of the imagination
over the authority
of the regime of facts.
So facts and history,
that's about the possible,
the probable, the ordinary.
Fine as a ghost, but
you miss something.
It's not enough.
It's not the whole story.
To get the whole story
you need more than that.
You need some of the marvelous.
You might need a lot
of the marvelous.
It's sort of up to you to judge.
This is the same stance that
you will see hawthorn adopting
in the Custom House preface
to The Scarlet Letter,
which you'll read
over the weekend.
Right? He's talking about
himself, in the Custom House,
in the nineteenth century,
talking extensively
about how he comes
to edit a manuscript
that he has discovered,
called The Scarlet Letter.
Right? And he'll go and
he tells you about it.
Here's this manuscript and I
opened it up and this piece
of whatever it was,
this cloth fell out
and he almost says you can
come and see it if you want.
Right? Hes trying to say
that he has the authority
of authenticity.
Of truth. This really happened.
Of course, in the same
way that he creates this,
he can hardly be said to
commit a literary crime,
even if he disregard
this caution.
He will say of course, in The
Scarlet Letter, I don't vouch
for a word for word
transcription,
I vouch for the larger
truth of the thing.
The outlines of the tale.
Which means that in the
end, he's claiming just
to be a mere editor
of this manuscript,
but we really have
no idea how much
of it is a really true
manuscript, if we believe
in that fiction and how much
of it is his own imagination.
Right? So one of the
things I want you
to see is he's going
even further than Irving
in attempting to
take, appropriate some
of the authority that
even in this period,
accrues to the historian
and shift it someplace else.
That's one thing.
Towards the literary.
Towards the province
of the imagination.
And then even within the
province of the imagination
and the literary, he wants
to shift things further away
from where they might be
said to have kind of settled,
at the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
Away from the novel to something
more rarefied and he thinks
of more imaginative, in some
sense, more fictional even.
Because it isn't so bound to
the problem of ordinary course
of man's experience and that
is what he calls romance.
So that's one of the
things to bear in mind.
Hawthorn is taking these terms
and trying to shift them.
He does not want to say
that he has no relation
to what we might think
of as morality or proof.
In fact, the argument
would seem to be
that the romance gets you closer
to a sort of higher moral truth.
Because it isn't bound
simply by what we can see
and experience in the every day.
Right? It is linked to the
marvelous and what are miracles
for example, if not some
aspect of the marvelous.
Right? What I want you to see is
that hawthorn is
taking this idea
of romance and appropriating it.
Already that's a kind
of appropriation itself
of the term romance.
I mean, later on he'll
say in the Custom House,
that this is a kind of figure
for what happens in a romance.
He says that we have
the creation
of what he calls a
neutral territory.
Somewhere between the real world
and fairyland, where the actual
and the imaginary may meet
and each of them be themselves
with the nature of the other.
All right, so the sense in
which romance is bringing
things together.
Its bringing together the
possible, the ordinary, sure,
but also something
else beyond it and it's
in that bringing together, in
that fundamental reconciliation
of things that might
seem to be separate.
That romance works.
Right? So you think about
it, this moment is the moment
when he's talking about the
child's playroom looks a certain
way in the day, at
night it looks
and when it's really interesting
is precisely that moment
that he seems to refer to
in the preface of The House
with Seven Gables, when
the shadows start to emerge
and we get what he calls
this neutral territory.
Some kind, the gray.
So that you might say, the
thing that's interesting
to hawthorn is the gray space.
Some would call it
the liminal space.
In between one thing
and another.
So that overall I would say
to you, a productive way
of thinking about hawthorn
is he's somebody who's trying
to get away from
a logic of either
or to a logic of both and.
And we'll try to see how that
works over the next two times.
Now he's deploying romance
to help him in this project.
Romance already meant
something else and he's trying
and something that's ennoble
It's in sort of the same way
that Gothic was a term that
Charles Brocton Brown tried
to ennoble and make a part
of a larger public discourse.
Hawthorn is trying to
ameliorate the means of romance.
Well later in the
century, Henry James kind
of captures what
the standard sense
of romance was in
hawthorn's day.
He said the only general
attribute of projected romance
that I can see is
the fact of a kind
of experience of which it deals.
Experience liberated
so to speak.
Experience disengaged,
disenbroiled, disencumbered,
exempt from the condition
that we usually know
to attach from it.
Right? There's something
fantastic about it.
It's not grounded in real life.
Hawthorn I think wants it, wants
contra to James, wants to say
that in fact, there
is a kind of tether.
There is a link between
these things.
Now you know, James, by the
way, James was on of the,
James' major inspirations
was hawthorn.
In fact, it's possible to think
of some of his later fictions
as almost kind of rewrites of
some of hawthorn's fictions.
Walter Scott, roughly
contemporary
with certainly Irving and
with hawthorn as well said,
we now use the term
romance as synonymous
with fictitious composition.
It's a romance just means,
it's just another way
of talking about fiction.
Another representative comment
comes from a retired general
from the, from the army.
The facts and scenes of
the revolution he said,
were so strange and heroic that
they resembled ingenious fables
or the dreams of romance,
rather than the realities
of authentic history.
Right? So I want you to see
how these dichotomies are being
set up.
Dreams of romance on the one
hand, reality on the other,
authentic history on the other.
Hawthorn is trying to
bridge this gap, both and,
rather than either or.
And even Charles Brocton Brown
distinguished romance not
from novels, but
from history as well.
He would, he said
similar things.
Romance for him was not one kind
of fiction as opposed to fact,
but all of fiction
as opposed to fact.
Hawthorn was going to
do something different.
He's going to divide fiction up,
he's going to promote a
certain view of a certain kind
of fiction and he's going
to call that kind romance.
So I want you to understand that
hawthorn is turning to romance
in a climate, a kind of cultural
climate that is hostile to it.
That either it's
suspicious of it
because it's either a low form
or because it's still
there's a worry
about the status of fiction.
Isn't fiction telling tales?
Isn't fiction lying?
But hawthorn wants to do
something different with it.
He wants to say that
it's radically different
from a novel, because it doesn't
limit itself to the probable
and the possible,
because it gets at this
and this is important, this idea
of the truth of the human heart.
And I think you know, one
way to think about it is,
think about the kind of things
that Poe is interested in.
Right? Poe was interested in
uncovering stuff that's within
and that kind of
makes itself come out.
Just imagine, as a
thought experiment,
imagine if young Goodman Brown
were told in the first person.
If it were Brown himself
who were telling the story.
Suggest to you that that
would probably be the way
that Poe would do it.
It would sound, it
would seems to be a lot
like a kind of Poe story.
You can imagine it right?
Guy tells a story of he's
going to the woods and then all
of a sudden he realizes
that everybody
around him is either mad
or depraved or a witch
or something crazy like that.
And Poe would leave it there.
I suggest to you that
what hawthorn does is more
interesting even than that.
But to understand what it is
that hawthorn is doing there,
we need to put another
category on the table
and that is allegory If you have
your book, you can take a look
at page 1332 to get
the full passage here
that I'm going to read.
This is from a famous story that
unfortunately we don't have time
to read, although it's terrific.
It's called, Rapachini's
[assumed spelling] Daughter.
And again, you can
see affinities
between hawthorn
and Irving here.
Again, hawthorn creates a
kind of fictitious alter ego,
the writing, let's see,
Rapachini's Daughter,
the writings of one,
Ovapine [assumed spelling],
which turns out to be
French for hawthorn
and he says this to
preface the story.
Irvingesque.
We do not remember to have
seen any translated specimens
of the productions
of [inaudible].
Fact the less to be wondered
at as his very name was unknown
to many of his own
countrymen as well as a student
to foreign literature.
As a writer, he seems to
occupy an unfortunate position
between the transcendentalists
who under one name or other,
have their share in all the
current literature of the world
and the great body
of pen and ink men,
who address the intellect and
sympathy's of the multitude.
Right? So this is
another image of in
between ness here,
these literati types.
These transcendentalists and
then there's the normal people
that most people you know,
journalists and others
that people are reading.
If not too refined, at all
events too remote, too shadowy
and unsubstantial in his most
development, to suit the class
of a latter taste and yet too
popular to satisfy the spiritual
or metaphysical requisitions
of the former,
he must necessarily find himself
without an audience, except here
or there and individual
or possibly an isolated
clich right.
So hawthorn is kind of
writing about, I guess,
what he perceives to
be his own situation.
And he perceives to be
somebody who's caught
in betwixt and between.
He's sort of popular, but not
as popular as he would like.
He's not quite respected enough
among the intellectuals perhaps.
His writings and again, this
is a typically Hawthornian sort
of hedged sentence.
We give and then we
take away a little,
this sort of sidal left
to our description.
His writings to do them justice,
are not altogether destitute.
So how much is there?
Are not altogether destitute
of fancy and originality.
They might have won
him greater reputation,
but for an inveterate love
of allegory, which was apt
to invest his plots and
characters with the aspect
of scenery and people in the
clouds and to steal away some
of the human worth out
of his conceptions.
He is ventriliquizing,
obviously,
criticisms that were
made of his own writing.
All right, but it's
interesting to see then
that what people took a look
at hawthorn and thought of him
as doing something
that we might link
to allegory Now that's not a bad
thing necessarily, allegory was
in fact a very popular form.
But allegory is exactly
the kind of form
that would bother
hawthorn because it wants
to map meanings exactly
from one place to another.
We'll see how this
works in just a minute.
So hawthorn is really
interested in allegory right.
He says that two of his favorite
writers are Spencer and Bunyon.
Spencer who was know as one
of the premiere you know,
both of them and Don Bunyon
who is probably you know,
one of the most widely
read books in New England
from the colonial period
up to hawthorn's day.
You'll remember that Miss
Ofilia has a copy of Bunyon
on her shelf next to her Milton.
Right? So one of the things
that we might say here looking
at this description from
Rapachini's Daughter,
this idea of being what does
it say, the aspect of scenery
and people in the clouds
and to steal away some
of the human warmth.
There's something cold and
intellectual you might say,
about allegory In other
words, rather than trying
to represent people and their
fullness and complexity,
allegory people have often
thought, doesn't represent fully
in that way, it's
kind of illustrative.
It's more interested in
getting across certain concepts
and therefore it's plots and
it's people are simply there
to serve as illustrations
of these concepts.
So Coalridge for example said
that allegory was a translation
of abstract notions
into picture language.
And the term allegory itself
comes from Greek roots,
which mean to speak
other than openly.
All right so one of those things
where you're saying something
in a different way
than you might.
But we were meant to understand,
those are kind of one
to one correlation
between those two things.
According to a guy named Angus
Fletcher who's a famous scholar
of allegory and who wrote
the piece interestingly
on the Whitman that I asked
you to look at, he says,
in simplest terms allegory says
one thing and means another.
Now you might say, what allegory
actually says isn't exactly
unimportant, to use a kind
of Hawthornian construction.
In fact, it may be
very realistic.
Hawthorn himself said that
he read Pilgrim's Progress
for the story.
Has anybody read
Pilgrim's Progress?
Yes, I'll give you a
little taste of it.
Imagine reading Pilgrim's
Progress for the story
or for the characters.
You'll see why that seems silly.
Fletcher says, the whole
point of allegory is
that it doesn't need to be
read in this biblical way,
eclectically, often
has a literal level
that makes good sense by itself.
But I would suggest to you
that that is almost never
the primary interest
of the allegory That
literal level.
What we're interested in is
the other meaningness of it,
that other thing that all
of those plot elements
and character elements
are pointing to.
The sermon you might
say, beneath the story.
So the crucial part
about allegory might be
that it's illustrative and
therefore it's relation
to reality seems to be
at a further removed
than most fictions.
Less interested in the
real world, as it were,
than ideas about the real world.
Is interested in other
words, in kind of abstraction
and sort of abstract ideas.
To illustrate what this,
to illustrate this,
let me give you a few snippets
from Pilgrim's Progress.
Which was published in 1678
and it's full title is,
The Pilgrim's Progress from this
World to that which is to come,
Delivered Under the Similitude
of a Dream, by John Bunyon.
And again, next to the bible,
it was the most widely read
in New England during
the eighteenth
and the nineteenth centuries.
This is the beginning.
As I walk through the
wilderness of this world,
I lighted on a certain
place where there was a den
and I laid me down in
that place to sleep
and as I slept I dreamt a dream.
OK, so important to remember
this idea of the dreamer.
I dreamed and behold I saw
a man clothed with rags,
standing in a certain
place, with his face
from his own house,
a book in his hand
and a great burden
upon his back.
Now this should remind you
of your Wigglesworth, right.
This is, he says, he's basically
referring you back to the bible.
If you went and looked in
the bible you would realize
that what this is is an allegory
of the individual
you know, sinner.
And in fact, the
maker of the back pack
that he's carrying,
is in fact, sin.
All right, so he's carrying
this weight of sin on his back.
I looked and I saw him open
the book and read therein.
And as he read he
wept and trembled
and the not being able
longer to contain,
he'd break out with a lamentable
crying, saying what shall I do.
And again, this is meant to say,
we're dramatizing something
that's come from the bible.
Now the narrator goes on.
Now I saw in my dream, that just
as they had ended this talk.
This is a little bit later on.
He's met somebody else.
All right you know, this
figure who's name turns
out to be Christian Says, so as
the hit the end of this talk,
they drew near to a very miry
slow that was in the midst
of the plain and
they, being heedless,
did both fell suddenly
into the bog.
They name of the
slow was Despot.
Slow is an interesting
word by the way.
If it has to do with
snakes, it's the kind
of word my younger son hates,
because it breaks all the rules
and breaks it's own rules.
Slough if it's for snakes,
slough, usually with the slough
of Despond, slough if you're
British and possible if you come
from New England,
slew if you're talking
about average ordinary
bogs, but still slough
if you're talking
about this one.
So I think for simplicity
sake, let's just say slough.
The slough was despond.
Here therefore they
wallowed for a time,
being grievously bedobbed
with the dirt and Christian,
because of the burden
that was on his back,
began to sink in the mire.
The burden of sin.
All right, you start to
understand how this is working?
A little bit later on.
Christian was left to tumble
in the slough of despond alone,
but he still, he endeavored
to struggle to that side
of the slough that was so
further from his own house
and next to the wicked gate.
That which he did but
could not get out because
of the burden that
was on his back.
But I beheld in my dream that a
man came to him who's name was,
help, and asked him
what he did there.
Sir, said Christian, I was bid
go this way by a man called,
evangelist, who directed
me also to yonder gate
that I might escape
the wrath to come.
And I was going vither,
I fell here.
Help says, but why did you
not look for the steps?
And Christian says,
fear followed me so hard
that I fled the next
way and fell in.
And help says, then said
he, give me thy hand.
So he gave him his hand
and then he drew him out,
set him upon sound ground
and bid him go his way.
And again, it invokes
the Psalms.
Right? So I want you
to see how this works.
Right? I mean, how
does that work?
We can clearly see that what
this is is an allegory of,
it's really about the
progress of the Christian soul.
Away from things like sin and
despair, with the you know,
the temptations that you, the
help that you get from others,
to a place that Christian
has to go.
It's called the Celestial City.
Right? So it's how a
soul gets to heaven.
And that's really what it is.
It's kind of a sermon
that's lightly dramatized.
So I think you get the
allegoryness of it right.
I mean, there's a character.
His name is, help.
We don't know too
much about help.
He's not really described
for us.
Because what he looks
like isn't important.
What's important about him is
that he is the embodiment
of the idea of help.
Right? So later on Christian
meets people like Help.
They have other names.
Simple, slough, presumption,
hypocrisy Yes.
He goes on a little sightseeing,
places like the valley
of humiliation.
Always fun.
Even more fun, the valley
of the shadow of death.
He is joined, he has
a few other people
who help him along,
serve as tour guides.
These are people named
hopeful, faithful.
He's the one who actually helps
convert Christian in the end.
You get the idea.
The narrative in which these
characters are appearing is
a sermon.
It's a theological discussion
about Christian salvation
and that's the sense in which
the allegory says one thing.
It pretends to be telling a
story about these characters
but it means another thing.
This is really a sermon
about the progress
of the Christian soul.
OK. Hawthorn is interested
in this form.
He's interested at times in
making use of it and we can say
in part because of the form
that people think they know how
to read in his moment, but
he's also interested I think
in demonstrating
it's limitations
and as I'll suggest further
on Monday, I think that's
because he understands
that allegorical thinking has
an inordinate amount of power
in the middle of the nineteenth
century, as the result
of the kind of continuing
residue of Calvinism.
So that's why he's
going to go after it,
you might say, in his writing.
So now we turn to
this, this story,
which if you printed it out,
please pull it out, called,
The Celestial Railroad,
which was woefully omitted
from this edition of the Norton.
But I think it'll get you, give
you a sense of what's going
on with hawthorn and allegory
It's quite clearly openly,
in fact it refers to Bunyon,
it's like literally a send
up of Bunyon's, Pilgrim's
Progress.
In fact, on page 1305 of
this, he refers to Bunyon.
He says, the respectable apolion
was now putting on the steam
at a prodigious rate,
anxious perhaps to get rid
of the unpleasant reminiscences
connected with the spot
where he had so disastrously
encountered Christian Consulting
Mister Bunyon's road book, I
perceive that we must now be
within a few miles of the
Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Right? So Bunyon is
now like the guidebook.
He's lead [inaudible] or let's
go to Celestial City, right,
that's what Bunyon is and he's
making fun of it in that way.
The story we imagine here
therefore is a kind of updated,
nineteenth century,
transcendentalist version
of the pilgrimage to
the Celestial City.
We don't have to walk anymore.
We can take the train.
That very emblem of nineteenth
century American progress.
We have all the modern
conveniences.
Take a look at page
1302 for example.
This is the first
full paragraph.
It really seemed to me however,
that the bridge vibrated
and heaved up and down in
a very formidable manner.
In spite of mister smooth it
away's testimony to the solidity
of it's foundation, I should
be loathed to cross it
in a crowded omnibus, especially
if each passenger were
encumbered with as heavy luggage
as that gentleman and myself.
Now if we know Bunyon, we're
starting to get the joke.
Right? Heavy luggage?
I mean all the luggage
that, what's the luggage
that Christian is
carrying around?
It's a bunch of sins.
So if you've got really heavy
luggage, you got problems.
But luckily you've got a
train to carry it for you.
Nevertheless, we got
over without accidents,
sooner found ourselves
at the station house.
This very neat and spacious
edifice is erected on the site
of the little wicked gate which
formally as all old pilgrims
with recollect, stood
directly across the highway
and by it's inconvenient
narrowness was a great
obstruction to the
traveler of liberal mind
and expansive stomach.
The reader of John Bunyon
will be glad to know,
that Christian's old friend,
evangelist, who's accustomed
to supply each pilgrim
with a mystic role,
now presides at the
ticket office.
Right? So you can see
whats going on here.
There's almost a
kind of frank lineon,
bringing down to
earth, of some of this.
As if we're making
fun of Bunyon.
All right, we're
making fun of that kind
of pious Christianity Or are we?
Is that the only thing
that we're making fun of?
Take a look at the top of 1304.
Right? There seems to be
a again, this whole idea
of making fun of pilgrims that
do it the old fashioned way.
Da, da, da, da, let's see.
Just at the top of
the page, second line.
It was laughable while we
glanced along as it were,
at the tale of a thunderbolt, to
observe two dusty foot travelers
in the old pilgrim guys
with cockleshell staff,
their mystic rolls of
parchment in their hands
and their tolerable
burdens on their backs.
The preposterous obstinacy
of these honorus people
in persisting to groan
and stumble along the
difficult pathway,
rather than take advantage
of modern improvements,
railway right, excited
great mirth among our
wiser brotherhood.
We greeted the two pilgrims with
many pleasant jibes and roar
of laughter where upon they
gazed at us with such woeful
and observedly compassionate
visages
that our merriment grew
tenfold more [inaudible].
Right? You can see
what's going on here.
What is the suggestion
that the story is making?
Is the story really making
fun of these pilgrims?
Who's the butt of
the humor here?
In a name like mister
smooth it away.
What's going on there?
Mister live for the world.
Mister hides it in the heart.
How is this working?
[ no speaking ]
With whom or what are
we supposed to agree?
You read Bunyon, you know
what you're supposed to think.
You're supposed to avoid
the [inaudible] despond,
you're supposed to make your way
with the aid of help and faith
to through the Valley
of the Shadow
of Death, blah, blah, blah.
You're supposed to get
to the Celestial City.
We're right there with the
allegorists Where are we here?
What's being made fun of?
[ no speaking ]
What's that?
Yes, certainly in large part the
narrator himself is part of the,
is falling under the butt of
the joke here you might say.
This is an unreliable
allegorist as narrator.
Right? He doesn't quite see
the problems that are going on.
He's thinking like oh
we're so modern, you know,
I have these great
traveling companions,
mister smooth is away,
mister hides it in the heart,
and we're going to get really
fast to the Celestial City.
>> Unknown: I don't know.
In some ways I feel it's more
complicated than that though.
Because the narrator [inaudible]
isn't an allegorist He's sort
of thinks [inaudible] at
the same time [inaudible].
You know, he could be
[inaudible] therefore use it
as an allegory that is
in some ways distracting.
Doesn't represent [inaudible]
you have to go through.
But at the same time he's.
>> Unknown: Wait so, we
mean Bunyon as [inaudible]
but means he's thinking
of it literally.
Like for the story and as
a guide to the landscape.
>> Unknown: Yes.
>> Unknown: Not as an
allegory
>> Unknown: Yes, I don't
know.
It's hard, I haven't figure
it out totally [inaudible].
>> Unknown: It's clever
right.
I mean. Yes?
>> Unknown: I think he's
making
fun of everyone all at once.
He kind of [inaudible] but he's
also making fun of the narrator
and you know, the you know,
more bother that they
have it all figured
out [inaudible] modern
you know, advantages.
I think that he's trying to say
that neither of them have it.
>> Unknown: Right.
You might say there
is a certain amount
and certainly the narrator seems
to be promoting a certain kind
of poking fun of these pious
Christian pilgrims who are kind
of like country bumpkins.
They don't know how to take care
of all the modern conveniences
and why are they
struggling with their things
but we can have our really
heavy luggage and have it taken,
whisked away to the
Celestial City.
Except that you might say there
is a problem of the naming.
Right? To call somebody
mister smooth it away,
is probably a reference to
a transcendentalist thinker
like Emerson, for example.
Remember we said with
Emerson, part of the problem
with Emerson is that he might
be insufficiently attuned
to the problem of evil.
We just smooth it away.
So there's a sense in which the
allegory, let's keep it aside
from the, keep it away from the
narrator as allegorist figure.
The allegory certainly wants
us to agree with that right.
I mean, we are smoothing
it away.
We most likely are
hiding sin in our heart.
And we really ought to be
concerned with the fact
that our train is being
driven by a demon.
Do we get where we
want to go at the end
of the Celestial railroad,
we most certainly do not.
This is the last
paragraph of the thing.
And then did my excellent
friend, mister smooth is away,
wrath outright, in the
midst of which concranation,
a smoke wreath issued from
his mouth and nostrils
with a twinkle of lured flame
darted out of either eye,
proving indubitably that is
heart was all of a red blaze.
The imputant feigned
to deny the existence
of tophit [assumed spelling]
when he felt his fiery torches
raging within his breast.
I rushed to the side of the
boat intending to fling myself
on shore, but the wheels,
they began the revolutions
through a dash of spray on
me, so cold, so deathly cold
with that chill that will
never leave those waters
until death be drowned
in it's own river.
That with a shiver and
a heart quake, I awoke.
Thank heaven it was a dream.
Right? It turns, it's a dream,
a dream vision that turns
out to be a nightmare.
So one of the things that I want
you to see is that hawthorn is
at a very complicated way,
manipulating the
allegorical mode.
I think you're absolutely right.
As a story, it actually
holds out interest in a way
that Pilgrim's Progress doesn't.
I mean, it's interested
in details.
It's referring back to
the, it's referring back
to Pilgrim's Progress, but
it's representationally much
more rich.
It's almost like these
people do have certain kind
of characterizations.
On the other hand, I would think
it's a kind of manipulation
of the allegorical mode that's
still allegorical The meaning is
still you know, even though we
might be tempted to make fun
of people who are too pious, we
ought be very afraid of people
who try to take shortcuts
to moral behavior
or to good behavior or
think that they can be saved
by doing the equivalent
of taking the railroad.
Because the railroad may
turn out to be you know,
run by demons in the end.
We might have sold our souls
in trying to do it the easy way
in taking these shortcuts.
So you might say this is
almost because of the allegory,
as suggesting that we should
be critical of thinkers,
like Emerson, who don't
sufficiently understand the pull
of evil.
In that sense, we're meant to
be there with the allegorists,
the larger allegorist The one
who's written this whole thing.
Not so much the narrative
figure that as to wake
up from the dream and
maybe is enlightened.
But the story itself wants us
to see that there's a problem
with nineteenth century
notions of progress.
We're going too quickly.
We're getting, we're disposing
of original sin too quickly.
And that would be a reason
to remember back you know,
Melville in hawthorn
and [inaudible].
Right? Melville has
the same thing
that he notices in hawthorn.
That hawthorn is still worried
by and he dramatizes the pull
of what we call you know, the
Calvinist sense of depravy.
Right? Remember that from
Hawthorn and His Mosses?
That we need something
somewhat like original sin.
Not thinking mind can do
without that, to balance,
weigh the uneven
balance he says.
We'll take a look at that
again when we turn back
to Moby Dick, next week.
But you can see that that's
what's interesting about,
and I think that's illustrated
by the story as it were.
Hawthorn has a certain kind
of critique in mind for those
who would quickly
dispose of these kinds,
of the problem you
might say of evil.
Now that's relatively simple, I
think, compared to what's going
on in Young Goodman Brown.
Because Young Goodman Brown
takes us at one further removed.
Right? Young Goodman Brown
doesn't look exactly like this.
Why would we think that Young
Goodman Brown you might say,
is why would we think that
Young Goodman Brown has anything
to do with allegory?
What other, because there's
no, there doesn't seem
to be this kind of
set up, right.
This kind of set up that we
have in Pilgrim's Progress,
with a dreamer saying I'm
going to dream a dream and then
and that he uses here
in the Celestial City.
So what's allegorical
about Young Goodman Brown?
Yes?
[ inaudible ]
Well his wife's name is Faith.
That's an allegorical element.
Anything else?
Yes?
>> Unknown: I think the
fact
that it isn't dream vision
or particularly a
dream, it kind of sets
up the allegorical situation.
Because the dream is probably
just like the realm of symbols
where [inaudible] meanings that
[inaudible] to other things.
>> Unknown: OK.
We want to list, we want to
think I think a little bit more
about how that story
makes use of dream.
Right? I mean, because in
a dream vision, classical,
medieval dream vision and that,
the way in which that's
appropriate by Bunyon,
it's basically a dream is
something that's sent by God
as a kind of teaching moment.
Right? We trust what's
in dreams.
The dreams reveal the progress
of the Christian's soul.
The dream that Goodman
Brown may or may not have,
is a little dodgier than that.
Yes?
[ inaudible ]
OK, it's possible.
I mean sort of the, I mean
his name itself, right.
It isn't Christian,
but it's Goodman Brown.
There's something generic
about Brown and Goodman.
He's about what happens
to a good man.
What I want to propose
to you is this.
I think it makes a difference
the way the dreaming is treated,
not only because the dreaming
is a little bit uncertain,
whether it is a dream or whether
it isn't a dream, but again,
think of the standpoint
of the dreamer.
Who's doing the dreamer, who's
doing the dreaming in Bunyon
and the Celestial Railroad?
Who's doing the dreaming
in Bunyon
and the Celestial Railroad?
The author or the
narrator figure.
Who's doing the dreaming
in Young Goodman Brown?
It's Goodman Brown.
So we are what?
What's the triangulation?
We are, we have a narrator
who is not the dreamer
but is watching a figure
who is doing the dreaming.
Maybe, if that's
what he's doing.
So where's the allegorist?
And the allegory, that we're
going to look briefly at,
the dreamer is the allegorist
So where is the allegorist
in Young Goodman Brown?
It's Goodman Brown, right.
Goodman Brown plays not
necessarily the role
of Christian but he
is someone we watch,
literally doing what
allegorists do.
Possibly having this
dream vision.
We're not necessarily
having the dream vision.
Let's turn to it
and take a look.
One of the things I want to
suggest to you is going on here,
is that this is a form
of, if there's a way
in which the Celestial Railroad
is a kind of a manipulation
of allegorical mode,
then nevertheless
partakes in allegory right.
So it's a send up of allegory,
but it nevertheless is
using allegorical techniques
to make fun of something else,
other than allegory as well.
In Young Goodman Brown, I
suggest we really have a kind
of anti allegorical manipulation
of the allegorical mode.
But the way to think
about it is this.
On page 1297.
Right. Goodman Brown
meets this guy
and then he sees him
again in the woods.
He thinks.
He's there with his wife, Faith.
All right, 1297.
He's watching what he thinks
of as this kind of meeting
of the devil's disciples.
They did so and by the faith
of the hell kindled torches,
the wretched me beheld,
man beheld his faith.
And maybe that is
allegorical right.
I mean, maybe it's not just
his wife, but it's his faith.
Nevertheless, the wife of
her husband, trembling before
that unhallowed altar.
Lo, there ye stand my children,
said the figure in a deep
and solemn tone, almost sad
with this despairing awfulness
as if his once angelic
nature could yet mourn
for our miserable race.
Depending upon one another's
hearts he had still hoped
that virtue were
not all a dream.
Now are you undeceived.
Evil is the nature of mankind.
Evil must be your
only happiness.
Welcome again my children, to
the communion of your race.
Now, that's a statement.
That's like a statement
of the moral.
That's the lesson.
If it were Bunyon, that's what
you would be supposed to believe
and you wouldn't have
a doubt about it.
Evil is the nature
of mankind you know.
Christian should go to the
Celestial City, yes, we agree.
Is that what the story,
Young Goodman Brown,
wants you to believe in the end?
Does the story promote the view
that evil is the
nature of mankind?
What do you think?
Is that what you
came away thinking?
Evil is the nature of mankind.
We saw the devil, devil said,
evil is the nature of mankind.
Everybody in the hallowed whole
town was a devil worshiper.
Pretty much looks like evil
is the nature of mankind.
Yes?
[ inaudible ]
I think that you know, hawthorn
is always interested again,
I think that's right, in the
both end and in ambiguity.
Right? He's interested
in probing
at these in between spaces.
So we ask the question
now, so we've said like OK,
in allegory there's a dream.
We're not even sure
this is a dream.
Had Goodman, this is
the bottom of 1297,
had Goodman Brown fallen
asleep in the forest
and only dreamed a wild
dream of a witch meeting?
Now one of the things to
say is that if allegory goes
to the extent that what we are
seeing is a kind of allegory
of him losing his faith.
So there's a literalized way
in which what Goodman Brown sees
is the literal loss of his faith
because his wife is
meant, is named Faith.
So when he loses her to
the devil, he's lost,
not only his wife,
but his Faith,
with a capital F both ways.
Right? Understand?
But what I want to suggest
to you is that's still
internal to Goodman Brown.
We are not saying that we
have lost faith as leaders,
we are watching someone
losing faith.
And what I suggest to you is
that the story is dramatizing
what it is like to think
like an allegorist and how easy
it is if you think in this black
and white way, either everyone
is evil or everyone is good,
there's no in between, that
you can lose your faith.
Be it so if you will, alas
it was a dream of evil omen
for Young Goodman Brown.
A stern, a sad, a darkly
meditative, a distressful,
if not a desperate man did
he become from the night
of that fearful dream.
On the Sabbath day, when the
congregation were singing a holy
song, he could not
listen because an anthem
of sin rushed loudly
upon his ear
and drowned all the
blessed strain.
When the minister spoke
from the pulpit with power
and fervid eloquence and with
his hand on the open bible
of a sacred truths of our
religion and of saint like lives
and triumphant deaths
and a future bliss
or misery unutterable, then
did Goodman Brown turn pale.
Why? Because he's reading
like an allegorist Right?
They're saying one thing,
but they mean another.
They all look pious and
good, but he is convinced
that they are all evil.
Only evil can he see around him.
Then did Goodman
Brown turn pale,
dreading lest the
roof should thunder
down upon the grave last
[inaudible] often awaking
somebody at midnight, he
shrank from the bosom of faith.
And at morning or even
tired when the family knelt
down at prayer, he scowled
and muttered to himself
and gazed sternly at his
wife and turned away.
And when he had lived a
long, when he had lived long
and was born to his
grave a whory corps,
and look at the guy, he's got
a wonderful big family followed
by faith, an aged woman and
children and grandchildren,
a goodly procession,
besides neighbors,
not a few they carved no
hopeful verse upon his tombstone
for his dying hour was gloom.
So think about it.
We'll stop, we'll
take this up again.
But think about the way
that that has worked.
What is the difference
between that rendering
of the way allegory works and
the rendering we see either
in Pilgrim's Progress
or Celestial Railroad.
Again, I want to suggest
to you, that you might say
that what this is dramatizing
is the cultural problem
of allegory What happens
to people, individuals
and what happens to a culture
that thinks allegorically?
And I suggest to you that
that in some sense is one
of the larger projects of that
longer work that we'll look
at called, The Scarlet Letter.
All right, that's it for now.
Thanks.
