>> I'm going to play you
Whitney Houston's version
of the Star Spangled Banner.
[ Cheer ]
And then I want you to listen
to it, and then I'm going
to play you a clip from a film.
This film is called The Sum of
All Fears, has anybody seen it?
It stars Ben Affleck,
you know, an adaptation
of Tom Clancy's novel.
And you'll see immediately
why I'm playing you the clip,
I want you to look at it
and tell me what you
noticed about it, alright?
So let's first listen
to Whitney.
[ Music ]
>> Alright, please try
to get me to [inaudible],
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Alright, so what did
you noticed about that?
Yeah,
>> In both versions they
have drums, and they,
>> In both versions they
have
drums, ok, what do you mean?
What do you mean
in both versions?
Ok, Very good.
What he sang in the film
clip was not the Star
Spangled Banner.
It was the verse four of
the Defense of Fort McHenry
which was the poem, from
which the national anthem,
the Star Spangled is taken.
And most people don't
realize that in fact,
the Star Spangled Banner is
only one verse of a longer poem
that was written after a
battle during the war in 1812.
And one of the things I'm
going to try to argue for you
in the course of the hour
is that, people have said
that Star Spangled Banner maybe
that should not be the
national anthem and not only
because it's hardly
sing able by any,
you know, normal human being.
Ever tried singing it
before a ball a ball game?
It's very difficult; especially
when somebody is doing it
in a high key with lots
of flourishes on top.
And actually there is
a good reason to think
that it shouldn't be the
national anthem seeing it,
as it comes more of a
British drinking song.
Ok, but also, people
say, well it's about war.
And why should our national
anthem be about war;
shouldn't we have something
like God bless America;
or America the beautiful;
something that celebrates
the land.
And what I would want to suggest
to you is that it's only in part
of the poem that is about
war; and that what it also is,
in fact this what I would
want to suggest to you is,
what it primarily is, is a poem
about the process
of enlightenment.
Now we might decide it for
other reasons, we don't want
to have a poem that is
about enlightenment,
to be the national anthem,
but I think we should think
about that in a different way.
Ok? So, one of the things I
want to do for you today is
to sketch briefly, what
we mean by enlightenment.
We didn't have a lecture
last week on Edwards,
'cause it's usually where I
would introduce the concept
of enlightenment.
And just as you all
remember, I'm going to do
that lecture next Monday, for
those of you who can attend
at 12:30 in this room; so right
before our normal meeting time,
and then we'll go from
that, we'll have a break,
and then we'll go into
the lecture that's
about the American enlightenment
of Franklyn and Jefferson.
But I'll tell you a little
bit about Enlightenment now,
coz it should in some sense,
remind you of the things
that you've done in the
supplementary reading,
particularly that piece
written by Leonard Mercek.
But the enlightenment,
you might say,
is a moment of profound
intellectual
and cultural change; and one way
of thinking about enlightenment,
that I think might be useful for
us, is to think of it in terms
of that model of dominant
residual and emergic cultures,
that I mentioned and
have been talking
about since the beginning
of the term.
Well I wish there was some
kind of dominant consensus
that becomes, you might say,
the core of the culture.
And that dominant consensus
is always part of the process;
it's always changing; it's
always sending off challenges;
challenges from older
belief system
that might still be around.
Challenges from newer
belief systems.
So the context of our
course, we might say
that the dominant culture
in the 17th century,
where we've been spending
a lot of our time recently,
has to do with, something
that has to do
with religious experience
particularly in New England;
and the Northeast with
Calvinism; American Puritanism;
but at the same, there
are whole other set
of intellectual development
that are going on,
in their accelerated way, in
England and the continent;
but eventually they make
their way over here.
We'll talk about it a
little bit more next week,
but it's a culture, where we
might call Belle Letra, right?
And with that kind of,
which literally means beautiful
letters, but certainly,
it means kind of fine writing;
writing for almost its own sake;
Belletristic writing is
often about, is often a kind
of essay writing that we
would associate with something
in English context like, In
a Joseph Ashton for example.
That is a thing that is
happening at the same time,
as Jonathan Edwards is
being educated in a school
for ministers called Yale.
And one of the things
that happen to Edwards,
he happens to read
some of John Loft,
we'll talk a little bit
more about it next time,
and he kind of sees, all of a
sudden, something very exciting
in Loft and something really
scary, because Edwards is raise
as a kind of old
time Calvinists.
In fact he's even a little bit
more doctrinaire than his uncle,
who was a famous preacher;
but who was pushing Calvinist
doctrine a little bit towards
the enlightenment,
Samuel Starter.
Edwards has some sense
of retrenches and wants
to become conservative, but
he sees what we might think
of as a kind of emergent
culture, around the ideas
of the enlightenment; which is
clearly going to pose the threat
to the old time religion.
Mind him, that he's
going to realize that,
if he wants to continue
preaching the Calvinists way
and sustain Calvinists belief;
he has got to find a way
to retrofit it; to take
this new technology
and make it compatible with,
or at least not a threat
to the Calvinism, which
he so firmly believe.
So everyone has become his
very strange cost figure.
And one of the things to
remember about Edwards is that,
he's almost exactly
the contemporary
of Benjamin Franklin.
And the two men -basically,
Franklin lived longer,
'cause Edwards died
prematurely of slob pox,
but they were living
at the same time.
And they were both
looking to strike a balance
between old time ideas that grew
out of New England: Puritanism
and other forms of Religion
and Religious influence,
up and down the Eastern
Seaboard;
and this new idea of
the enlightenment.
And one of the things that
I would say about the shift
that is placed with
the enlightenment;
Enlightenment is really about
moving about from a conception
of the primary drama of
human life being spiritual
and taking place, you might
say, in God's consciousness.
To the primary drama of
human life taking place
in our own consciousnesses;
life becomes infra eccentric,
human centered, understanding
of the nature of the Universe.
And different enlightenment
thinkers would try to square
that was a belief in
God in different ways.
Some people like John Loft will
find it completely compatible
with belief in a deity, in a
Christian deity, particularly.
I mean, you could say bluh,
is a revelation, miracles;
that way of attaining knowledge,
that's still, you know,
if you could get that,
that's the best way.
It comes directly down from
the pipeline from heaven,
that's the best way
to get knowledge,
but how often does that happen?
How often does that happen
in modern 17th century times?
Not so often.
So it's not the most
reliable way to get knowledge.
On the other hand, if God gave
us souls; God gave us the minds;
God gave us everything
that comes with them,
then he gave us the
power to reason.
So the sense of this
power to reason is divine
and we have to make use of it.
So there's no incompatibility
for somebody like loft
between belief in God and you
might say, using human reason
to discern things about
truths, you know, larger truths,
as far as scientific
principles, understandings
of the way the world works.
Now obviously that's a big shift
in the premisance
[assumed spelling],
and when the premisance
obviously change,
we're not automatically believe
that the world is
somehow deprave
and completely unreliable
and that we, as human being,
are depraved and
completely unreliable.
And that we we're going to say
No, in fact we are connected
to God, and therefore, there is
some sense of divine sanction
for things like scientific
research, and scientific belief,
some enlightenment think
we'll go even further,
they become ascious [assumed
spelling], as see what,
well we'll talk about
Franklyn's particular take
on this next time.
But one of the things that I
see is some kind of a spectrum
of responses, but all of these
are part of a larger trend
in thought in which we might
say the human consciousness.
After they cart the
human consciousness is
where the action is.
It's what becomes the center you
might say of culture in a way
that it hadn't been before.
So there's a number
of principles
of that we might
think of when we think
about the enlightenment.
But one of the most important I
want to understand is that many
of these thinkers think
of enlightenment not
as an end result but
constantly as a process.
And in that sense,
the way that people
like can't even have talked
about enlightenment is very
compatible with this idea
of a model of culture
that is constantly in flux
and part of a process.
A dominant, residual, immersion
culture struggling to control
and be persuasive to
create new practices
that will become the dominant
practices that is compatible
with this idea of enlightenment.
So one of the famous statements
about the enlightenment
comes from Cant.
He even uses the term that
sounds similar to this idea
of the emergent although
it's not the same term.
Emergence.
Enlightenment is man's emergence
from his self-incurred
immaturity.
Automatically, you can
see that it's the self
that becomes the
most important thing.
It isn't emergence from
the state of nature
or from the ignorance
of Garden of Eden.
It's self-incurred.
Why? Because he says,
Immaturity is the inability
to use once own understanding
without the guidance of another.
This immaturity is self-incurred
if it causes not lack
of understanding but lack of
resolution and courage to use it
without the guidance of another.
The model of enlightenment
is therefore sacra auda,
which literally translated
from the Latin word meaning
dare to be wise, right?
Have courage to use
your own understanding.
And when we get to
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
you will see what many
people have regarded.
Emerson is a kind
of content thinker.
Somebody who has taken a lot
of transcendentalist philosophy
that is associate with Cant and
other German primarily thinkers
and somehow domesticated
it, made it suitable
for an American audience.
But that idea of have courage
to use your own understanding,
that could easily
be paraphrased.
A paraphrase for Emerson's
entire essay Self Reliance.
Emerson is all about the problem
for Emerson would be something
like self-distrust, being
afraid to trust yourself.
We'll talk about that.
I want to lay that note out
there for you to listen to now
and to strike to the
note again later on.
Jefferson, some 40 years later
after we might say the American
enlightenment has become the
dominant culture, has become the
dominant consensus reflects back
on it.
And he says this in 1826,
All eyes are opening
to the rights of man.
The general spread of the light
of science has already laid open
to every view and the
powerful truth that the mass
of mankind has not
been born with subtle
on their backs nor a favored
few booted and spurred ready
to ride them legitimately
by the grace of God.
These are grounds
of hope for others.
What is he talking about here?
What is he actually
referring to?
First of all, the metaphor?
What is the metaphor?
Yes.
>> A horse.
>> Who is the horse?
Mankind is the horse.
Good. And who's riding
mankind therefore?
Yes, I heard it.
The favored few booted in spur.
Who are the favored few?
Excuse me?
I think what he is suggesting is
that enlightenment is a process
that will allow these people to
no longer be the horse, right?
So it really wouldn't
be the enlightened,
if it wouldn't be enlightened.
Who would the favored few be
who have this, what's that?
Well, I guess if you're a
Puritan, it would be the elect
and I suppose you
might say if you think,
I haven't thought of that.
But I think that's good
so far as you're thinking.
Give it a kick, if you
are, several kicks.
Put it in spur.
There you go.
Thank you very much.
If you are thinking
for a Puritan standpoint,
you will say yeah.
Actually, the Puritans think of
themselves as the favored few.
They have the grace of God.
And who were their
writing and spurring?
Probably the natives
like non-elect people.
So that's good.
Although, I'm not sure
that's Jefferson has in mind
but it's good for our course.
Yes? Yeah the aristocracy and
maybe kings as well, right?
The divine right of kings,
the aristocrats are supposedly
given divine sanction, right?
Remember go back to Winfra.
Inequality is something
that is given by God.
Its part and Winfra comes
up of these arguments
about mutual obligation,
the promotion of charity.
He says that this is why
God has created this system
but exactly the divine
right of kings.
I mean one of the things that we
will talk about a little later
on is the way which
locks second treaties
of government is really designed
to make the counter argument
and prepare the way for this.
You might say in the aftermath
of the English revolution,
Hobbs created justification in
understanding of the statement
which says like look he's
really trying to create order
and he says, Everybody is born
but what happens is once you are
born may immediately delegate
you're authority to
this larger thing.
He calls it the laviton
by which means the state,
which is, personified the king.
So effectively, everything
belongs to the king.
Lock comes up with the rational
for understanding why everything
does not belong to the king.
Even if you have a king, the
king doesn't own everything.
Property has a different basis
than the divine right of kings.
We will get to that but it
has everything has to do
with property in the body.
You have property
in the body first.
Because you have property in the
body, you own your own labor.
When you mix your labor with
nature, you get more property.
That's yours.
That's the theory behind it.
That means God has
sanctified kings
but not given them everything.
But the enlightenment
starting taking them
as the starting point, Jefferson
is looking around and says look
with the ideas of
the enlightenment,
what we are seeing is
first of all we talked
about the rights of man.
In many cases, it is
philosophically justified
through property rights.
The idea of science
and constantly enlightenment
things are using the actual
metaphor of light itself,
the light of science.
Because of the light of
science, you can see better.
When you see better,
you get this truth.
And what the truth is, one
that's fundamental for him,
is that enlightenment means we
need to get rid of aristocracy.
That's why the most enlightened
country is the United States
in this early national period
not a favored few who are going
to ride legitimately
by the grace of God.
But in fact, Jefferson would
believe in a certain kind
of meritocracy that those
who have certain kind
of gifts will raise to the top
but it won't be on the basis
of whether your family
has descended from kings
or aristocrats urban
property called it, right?
That's part of what
Americans are thinking about.
And by this time in 1826 we
would say the enlightenment has
become complete.
We might also think about the
fact that therefore the moment
of the Declaration of
Independence losing
up from there through
the constitution
and into the early national
period is the moment
of the American enlightenment.
Therefore, you might say
this country is founded
on the principles
of enlightenment.
The Declaration of Independence
is often taken to be
and we will talk about it
next week as a statement
of the principles
of enlightenment.
One of the things to
notice about Jefferson,
one of the reasons that we
look at it is that we will see
that it's a kind of
compromised document.
When you read the
account of the Declaration
of Independence that's
in Jefferson's autobiography
you'll see that he trying
to tap the original
because he wants you to see
where those damn politicians
have made compromises especially
those southern ones,
other southern ones.
But one of the things we can see
that Jefferson was not trying
to think of anything
radically new
when he wrote the
Declaration of Independence.
I think it's a brilliant
document rhetorically.
I'll be little harsh
about Jefferson a little
bit later on today.
But I think Jefferson
was a brilliant thinker,
contradictory complex.
But what was he trying to
do with the Declaration
of Independence was
create a document
that you wouldn't
be able to argue
with because it embodied
common sense,
the common sense of
the enlightenment.
And one of the things
to say is whatever
or anybody involves
common sense is always
in some sense the
height of ideology.
So by looking at the document
that is supposedly embody
in common sense, we can
learn a lot about the moment
in which it was written,
the kind of assumptions
behind that moment, alright?
There are certain
doctrines that come
with enlightenment thinking.
Among them is this, which would
be almost direct encounters
to the period that
we've been looking at,
the natural goodness
of human being.
There might even good ones but
that didn't last very long.
Enlightenment thinkers
don't tend to believe
in the total depravity
of human kind.
In fact, they believe
in its opposite,
in the perfectibility
of the human race.
We are getting 180 degrees shift
here away from total depravity,
embracing something that
might look to appear
like there are many inherency,
we can perfect ourselves,
and good works can be rewarded.
There's an emphasis
on reason in the ways
that I suggested to you.
Reason is the divine faculty.
It can end up in
different variants.
We'll talk about some
of these next weeks.
But for many it's still
compatible with belief in God
because it's God given.
But what Jefferson's quote
is telling us really ,
is that along with all these
things we need a doctrine
of equality, equality
before the law based
on the right individual
liberty because the system
of natural rights
was put into praise.
Once you have equality, you
already start to understand.
You need to be tolerant
over the people.
So this is all the moment
where there is greater emphasis
on religious toleration.
We usually in the American
context would mean something
like toleration for various
kinds of Christian beliefs.
We just suppose to step forward.
Along that I got an
idea of universality
or what's the universal
brotherhood
of all rational beings
and I used
that term brotherhood
intentionally
because again it's a
certain way in which many
of these ideals are
expressed in terms
that are absolutely masculine
and it is often questioned
to what these thinkers
actually believed
that women could participate in
enlightenment thinking as fully
as man could and that's you
might say a problem that is sort
of set aside by the founding
doctrines of the country
and left to be dealt with
later on and along that with
that the idea of
science and progress
if reason is defined the
application of reason
to the data and material
observations
that we might make
is also divine.
and so therefore
science that is something
that is emphasized
throughout all,
the key principles we would
want it keep in mind now just
to give you a sense of
how this will translate
into poetic practice which is
our subject for today want you
to take another look or a
closer look at something
that I mentioned to you
before in conjunction
with the metaphysical poet
and I was suggesting to you
when I cited Johnson asked if
you have read it, the idea was
to understand something
about metaphysical
poetry and how it worked.
Now I'm asking you to look at it
from a slightly different point
of view I'm asking you to think
about what kind of a sentence
about a nature of poetry
intellectual thought
like behind this so when I said
this is an 18th century text we
use it to try to get an insight
into a 17th century set of text
but now I want to think
about the 18th century right
so this is what Johnson write
from The Life of Culley,
with the given subject of
nature to the choice of the man,
has it changes in fashions
and has different time takes
different forms at the beginning
of the 17th century writers
turned the metaphysical poets
all metaphysics in
The Life of Culley.
It is not improper to give some
account and Johnson was one
of the great 18th century
pro star, so we're going
to give it a chunk of, I
want you to see how it works
and I'm going to ask you
when we're through of sets
of paragraph here to tell
me what you think are some
of the literary values that
the pros itself would seem
to exemplify it is not improper
to give some account
the metaphysical poet
and to show their learning
was their whole endeavor
but unluckily resolve to
show it in rhyme instead
of writing poetry
they only wrote verses
and very often said verses as to
the trial of the finger better
than the ear for the
modulation was so imperfect
that they were only found verses
by counting the syllables
what was that mean?
Is it all clear, what
we're talking about here?
Yeah, alright.
So it's technically its poetry
because why it scams
theoretically right?
That what he means
by the finger better
than the ear right
you can see the beats
but it doesn't sound good.
So that's something to bear in
mind there's something to do
that poetry has something
to do not only
with metro pole measurements
but something to do
with the way things sounds
modulation that's what they
call it.
Okay. if the father of criticism
by whom he means Aristotle
if the father of
criticism has rightly
to nominate a poetry
an imitative art
like Aristotle talks about
the principle of my nieces art
as representation through
imitation these writers will
without great wrong lose
their rights the name
of poets they cannot be set
to imitate anything their
neither copy nature nor life
neither painted the forms
of matter nor represented
the operations
of intellect those
however who deny them
to be poets allow
them to be wits.
Again, we were thinking
about metaphysical poetry,
driving one's to say, and poetry
on the one hand wit on the other
and the term rarely meets.
Driving confesses of himself
fall below down in wit maintains
that they surpass
them in poetry.
Is wit been well
described by poetry as being
that which has often been
taught but never before
so well expressed that's
one definition of wit?
They certainly never changed nor
ever saw it, for they endeavor
to be single in their
thoughts and were careless
of their diction but poet
account of wit was in doubt
of the erroneous he depresses
it below his natural dignity
and reduces it from
strength of thought
to happiness of language.
Okay so there's a way the
Johnson is being critical also
of some of the poetic practices
of his day by you know or poet
of the day the one
that is taught
to be the model very model
of modern nature poet pope.
If I am more noble and
more adequate conception
that be considered wit which
is at once natural and new
that was not obvious is a poet's
first production that knowledge
to be just, if it
be that would she
that never found it
wonders how he missed
to wit this kind the
metaphysical poets have seldom
reason there thoughts
are often new
but seldom natural
they are not obvious
but neither are they
just and the reader far
from what he missed them
wonders more frequently
by what the version of
industry they were ever found
but wit abstracted from facts
upon the hearer maybe more
rigorously and philosophically
considered as kind
of Discordia concourse a
combination of similar images
or discovery of a
cult resemblances
in things apparently unlike and
then the final famous statement.
A wit does defined
they have more
than enough the most
heterogeneous ideas are yoked
by violence together
nature and art are ransack
for those stations, comparisons
and illusions they're
learning instructs
and their subtlety surprises
but the reader commonly thinks
his improvement dearly bought
and though he sometimes
admires is seldom pleased.
Alright, that's a chunk of
pose, very Johnsonian poses,
what literary values
does it seem
to embody does it promote
not only by what it says
but we consider what
says but how it says it?
You can do both those things.
What and how?
What literary values
if we were going
to discern what Neil classicism
is as a set of principles
from just this passage
what would we say about it?
If anybody needs me to go back
to a phrase I can do that, Yes?
>> [Inaudible]
>> So, I want you to what,
>> [Inaudible]
>> Okay. What are
some instances?
Can you think of, ?
I think there's fairly
a better one.
>> [Inaudible]
>> Alright what do you
mean?
You're right about synthesis;
we're using it a lot.
What is synthesis?
>> [Inaudible]
>> Well, look at this
one, if the father
of criticism has rightly
denominate our poetry
and imitate of art
these writers will
without great wrong lose their
right to the name of poets
for they cannot be set
to imitate anything
so that antithetical set
up this is what poetry is,
these people are not bad.
You might say one of the
things that come along
with various kinds
of antithetical statement
is a certain sense
of balance right
this but not this
but not this a synthesis
often goes along
with parallelism you have
parallel statements set
up so what we might say
about that kind of pose,
an ant synthesis comes
up with a certain kind
of philosophical argumentation
right so the pose immediately
in it's very diction and some
philosophical even to a sentence
like this one about the
beginning of periods and letters
that maybe through metaphysical
that whom in criticism
of the word, it is not
improper to give some account.
It is not improper right?
That's a double negative It
might all has to be considered
to be a lit odious
what's a lit odious?
[ Silence ]
>> Literal interpretation
folk
to talk to them about no, Yes?
>> [Inaudible]
>> Okay so what is not
bad instead of good mean?
It's even better than.
It's just like that as fabulous,
and you'd go, oh not bad,
>> [Inaudible]
>> Okay that's good
underestimate we would say it's
a form of understatement.
We will say it's a form
of understatement, right,
that makes use of a double
negative construction.
By understatement it means
really good, actually,
it's not just good, if you are
saying it's a litotes you will
say it's not bad, it's
a way of indicating
that something is really good.
It is not improper to give
some account, but you just have
to think about what it is.
There is a certain
kind of formality
that makes it sound
kind of philosophical,
that gives it certain kind
of authority and finality,
and then he can go on
to explain that account.
So Johnson's prose is all
about kind of balance,
what he would call
decorum, right?
It's about carefully
balancing sentences.
And I don't know
if there is a typo,
just couldn't read it quite
right, but there's a sentence
in here where he talks about,
this one: If by a more noble
and more adequate conception
that be considered as wit
which is at once
natural and new,
that which though not obvious
is, upon its first production,
acknowledged to be
just; if it be that,
which he that never found
it wonders how he missed;
to wit of this kind the
metaphysical poets have
seldom risen.
There's a very strangely
content little sense,
I don't think it actually works,
it think there's something wrong
but can't exactly
figure out what it is.
But even if we had it
all perfect up here,
I think we would say he's
doing a kind of balancing act
for a certain kind of emphasis,
he wants to juggle rhetorically
certain things until he gets
to this: to wit of this kind the
metaphysical poets have seldom
risen So Johnson is
a pro stylist who is
above all interested in a
certain kind of promotion
and in a certain kind of
decorum, it's exactly that kind
of decorum that he says the
metaphysical poets don't have.
The most heterogeneous ideas
are yoked by violence together,
or you know, you wonder
by what per verses
of industry these metaphors ever
found, I mean who ever thought
of lovers as the feet of a
compass, or what was that,
the lights of a compass.
It's like who would have thought
of that, does that makes sense,
does it really tell us anything?
Johnson would say no.
So one of the things we might
say is that, for thinkers
like Johnson who are talked
about as neoclassical thinkers,
you say, there is, in
some sense, some interest
in going back to the
moment of Aristotle,
to thinking very seriously
about the kinds of principles
of writings that Aristotle
exposed, and that you could find
in other works of the classical
Greek and Roman period, right?
So it's a Neoclassicism,
it's a new classicism
and it accompanies the
enlightenment because it seems
to be the translation into
poetic practice of certain kinds
of enlightenment ideals, right?
So they start with
the idea of imitation
from Aristotle meaning poetry
is mimetic, and therefore think
that poetry ought to
imitate human life.
And what they what to do is
to assimilate certain classical
ideas and make them more modern,
rewrite them for the Modern
Age, which is the 18th century;
in part of the epic,
but even more of some
of the minor Classical authors.
This becomes their way
of reconstituting what
they think it was ancient,
literally valued.
So you can say that,
how is it connected
to enlightenment and thought?
Well, you might say that if
we are outside of the tyranny
of Christianity as a cultural
system we are now free
to explore some of
the ideas that people
like the Calvinists
wanted us to shut down.
We can go back to the Greek
past and rethink the meaning
of some of their ideas.
This is coming right
after two things, right?
First, the achievement that
anyone who was a thinker
about English letters in this
period would acknowledge,
the achievement of
Milton in Paradise lost.
It's really epic, and I'm
not going to do so much epic,
because it's hard to get
beyond the achievement
of epic of Milton.
Plus , to us, I think this
spiritual lesson is tenacious
than Shakespeare and
that's also Lumus law,
and that also Shakespeare
has sensed something
as the great master of
drama, drama is going
to be a little bit harder
to really conquer and some
of the 18th century
people try as much.
And also they are reacting
against, what we would think
like as the achievement of
the metaphysical poets, right.
They don't like it, they
think it's undisciplined,
instead they would rather
have what they called decorum,
and well that's restraint,
simplicity,
impersonality, decorum, right.
That's seems impersonality,
it would not be a mist too.
It would not be improper
to clearing a some sort
of authority, we might say, that
was really grounded in the self
but you'll try to masked that
authority, and we actually
against various kinds of
ornamental obscurity, you know,
excess of personality, so you
don't want something right done
into poetry, that's the
whole point of Johnsons Life
of Poetry, which you
want instead is a kind
of truthful representation
of nature and in kind
of larger terms, and this
is what really squares it
with the enlightenment,
the idea of humanism.
And in some sense what we are
interested in is the development
of humankind, from
various kinds of forms,
and poetry would be
one of them, right?
And as a result of
that it draws of some
of the ideas of enlighten.
The idea of universal
brotherhood that I talked to you
about becomes an idea about
the power of the universal,
rather than the particular.
We're more interested in
what is universally true
than in we're literal
[inaudible].
One thing that Johnson
said in his prepositions
in Shakespeare is
that Shakespeare is a master
precisely because he is able
to address the species whenever
he is depicting an individual.
In other words, all these
characters seemed unique,
Hamlet, Macbeth, whoever,
and then you realize
that they are embodying
some larger set of traits
which we can recognize in
human beings as a whole, right?
So Shakespeare manages
to do both.
He gives us the individual
and the species
in that is almost unique genius.
Poetry, finally,
should be didactic.
I mean you go back to the
last thing that he said.
The improvement is dearly boss,
no matter if it is physical
poetry or they teaches something
but it's dearly boss, it's
expensive; you spend a lot
of your own mental
capital on it.
Why? because you admire it
but you are not pleased by it.
Didactic poetry should
be didactic
for a chameleon faster finger
but it should instruct
by pleasing.
It is one of the
important things.
Now if you want create an art
that is pleasant to the ear,
it goes down smooth,
and therefore you ingest
as it were the principles
behind it much more easily,
just a spoonful of sugar makes
the verses go down, right?
So that is basically in a
nutshell some of the principles
of English neoclassicism.
I think you can see them,
I'll put this close up for you
and I think you'll seize
it if you see that some
of the principles are in fact
embodied in Johnson's writing.
All of these stuff makes it way
over to the America's, starting,
you might say in
the time of Edwards'
and then becomes a large part of
American revolutionary discourse
and the discourse of the
early national period.
In fact, poetry is
pretty much everywhere
in the early national period.
It's funny to think about
it, but it was about,
it is a way which was the
period of the founders,
maybe has a high point
of American intellectual
culture, right?
I mean these essential people
who were reading and talking
about ideas people, right?
There were fewer of
them and fewer of them
who got countless people but
leave that alone, we would say
that there was a, you know, the
life of the mind was evident
in the popular culture.
So poetry was everywhere, you
would find it in newspapers,
you would find it in public
performances, you would find it
in [broad sides] like
this one, like the defense
of port McHenry is a broad sign.
It was published in a large,
by which it was published
in a large sheet of paper that
was published made available
for sale very cheaply, or poet
even posted someplace, right?
So you would say that poetry
was kind of everywhere.
And it was in all kinds
of occasions, you know,
somebody died, you just made
a poem; somebody is born,
you made a poem; somebody who
got married, you made a poem;
somebody did something
else, you make a poem.
And do you remember
Huckleberry Finn?
I forgot her name,
what's her name?
That character, that she sat
somewhere half in the novel;
who is always writing poems,
for every occasions
[inaudible] the feud episode.
There's this woman, who just
kind of writes poems at the drop
of the hat she is always
writing her poems for everybody.
That is the satire of the,
you might say, the tail end
of this kind of public
culture of poetry.
But what I want you
to understand is that,
poetry still doesn't mean
what we think poetry means.
Like I said before, the
period of poetry was a kind
of oxy-moron and then Venice
starts to open up a little bit
and that there is attention
in the work of Brad's Steet,
for example, between the
Doctrinaire theological impulse,
and a kind of more
personal impulse
to explore both earthly
love, love for your husband,
grief when your children die,
when the house burns down;
that kind of attention is
still very much attention
of what we might think of
these public and private lives;
and that is still going
on in this period.
So poetry so a site of
private imagining, or lyric,
or you know, working out
problems in your head, No,
that is not what poetry is.
Poetry is meant, poetry in this
period is thought of us public,
communal, didactic, it's
out there in public,
it's part of the social
life of this period.
And therefore, some of the
great poets are re-interpreted
to be these kinds of
public poet, right?
So Shakespeare as thought of
in the early national period,
for example, as a great
writer because he is a writer
who constantly opposes
tyranny of all kinds.
He depicts the problems
of, death becomes a kind
of a cautionary tale to
the English monarch of ,
and people still
talk about this today
but what goes wrong
when you abuse power.
Shakespeare Milton becomes a
friend of religious liberty,
to try to open Puritanism
up to a larger audience
and then uses the
form of epic and so,
one of the things we might
say is that the Augustan style
in England during the first half
of the 18th century is
precisely what makes it way
over to the Americas throughout
and it becomes important
throughout the early years
of independence.
We might think of the
directions that Joe Barlow gives
for making pudding
in Hasty's Pudding.
I think somewhere around
Line 310 , this stanza here.
Some with molasses line
the luscious treat and mix
like bards the whole the
youthful with the sweet,
a wholesome dish and
well deserving praise,
a great resource in
those bleak wintry days
when the chilled earth lies
buried beneath deep in snow
and raging Boreas
drives the shivering cow.
A wholesome dish, bards, mix
the youthful with the sweet ,
that's what poetry
is supposed to do.
It's supposed to please but
it's also supposed to instruct
by pleasing and part of
what the poets were writing
in this period or trying
to do is create something
that we might call kind of
American national poetry
that will, in some
sense, celebrate some
of the great achievements
of American culture
up to this date.
Something like The Life
of Washington or Battles
of the Revolution were
popular, subjects for poetry
in the early national period.
Couple of things though.
In England, because it had
an aristocracy and continues
to have an aristocracy, if you
were a poet, you would be part
of a patronage system.
Typically, you would think
that a poet is either going
to be one of two models.
Poet , you can be some sort
of nobleman like Sir Phillip,
who's got time to write
because he doesn't have
to earn a living.
So he's got time to
write in his leisure time
or someone who's kind of an
impoverished artist figure
who then finds a great
man to be his patron,
and therefore sustain a
kind of part of court to be
or to produce [inaudible].
So you have a system of
patronage, doesn't work
in revolutionary America
and in the early
national United States.
There's no more aristocracy.
We're not going to be
booted and spurred anymore
but we're also not going to
pay you for making poetry.
So there's a kind of
problem there, you might say.
Increase me what's
going to happen,
and this will be a subject for
us in the next couple of weeks,
is that one of the things
that's becoming emergent
in this period is a system
that we might call the literary
marketplace in which poets
and novelists are going to
realize that they've got
to figure out how to sell their
stuff if they want to continue
to write it and make
a living for it.
And it's difficult enough
for the novel, we will see.
There are your [inaudible] who's
wonderful gothic novel Edgar
Huntley that we're going to
read in a little bit that tries
and fails to make a
professional career
out of being an imaginative
writer,
Washington Irving
is the first one
that really manages to do it.
It's even harder for poets.
That's another thing that they
get , along with these ideas
of style, philosophical
content, didactic poetry.
Certain models for what
it means to be a poet.
And the problem is that
neither of these models,
neither of the gentlemen amateur
or the hanger-on or the someone
who has Aristocratic patrons
quite fit the actual situation
that you have in
the United States
in the early national period.
So that's part of what we'll
see, I think, in the couple
of the lives that we're going
to be talking about today.
Let's talk about this thing.
The defensive Fort McHenry , if
you look at the head note of it,
it tells you, I'll give you
the link that you can find it.
The thing is from the
, can't remember it.
The Marilyn Historical
Society has a copy of this.
It says the next
song was composed
under the following
circumstances.
A gentleman had left
Baltimore in a flag of truth
for the peppers of getting
released from the British fleet,
a friend of his who had
been captured at Marlboro.
He went as far as the mouth
of Patuksik [assumed spelling]
and was not permitted to return
unless he intended an attack
on Baltimore should
be disclosed.
And the British Admiral had
voiced that they would take
over the fort lickedy-split
in no time at all.
He was therefore brought
up to the bay to the mouth
of the Patapako [assumed
spelling]
where the flag vessel was kept
under the guns of the frigate
and he was compelled to witness
the bombardment of Ford McHenry
which the admiral will have
boasted , there it is -
he would carry in a few hours
and that the city must fall.
He washed the flag at the
fort through the whole day
with an anxiety that would
be better felt than described
until the night prevented
him from seeing it.
In the night, he washed ,
>> The bombshells and at
early
dawn his eye was again greeted
by the proudly waving
flag of his country.
The British were
in fact repulsed,
and the naval occupation of
Baltimore doesn't happen.
To Anacreon in Heaven, again
that was a drinking popular
in an English pub called
the Anacreontic Society.
I think it's written by
this guy John Stafford Smith
for the Anacreontic Society,
and this is a copy
of the manuscript.
This is definitely in the
Maryland Historical Society.
Okay, I want to read it and
then I want about how it does,
want to think about
what it does,
and how it does what it does.
I think it's slightly cut off,
but I think we can
read it well enough.
And if you have it, you might
find it easier to look at it
on paper actually if
you printed it out.
Can somebody read it for me?
Yes. Loudly and with,
>> Want me to read
the whole thing?
>> Yes I do want you to
read the whole thing.
Now, okay, as I want
you to read,
I want you to read the
whole thing, and I want you
to pay attention as
she does it to the ways
in which certain elements
of the poem are repeated
but with a difference.
Immediately you should notice
something about the first stanza
that most people listening
to the Star Spangled
Banner do not know.
Take it away.
>> Oh say can you see by
the dawn's early light.
What so proudly we hailed at
the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes
and bright stars
through the perilous fight o'er
the ramparts we watched were
so gallantly streaming.
And rockets' red glare,
the bombs bursting in air,
gave proof through the night
that our flag was still there.
Oh say does that star
spangled banner yet wave.
O'er the land of the free
and home of the brave.
On the shore dimly seen
through the mists of the deep.
Where the foe's haughty host
in dread silence reposes.
What is that which the breeze
o'er the towering steep,
as it fitfully blows, half
conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of
the morning's first beam,
in full glory reflected
now shines in the stream.
Tis the star spangled banner, oh
long may it wave o'er the land
of the free and the
home of the brave.
And where is that band who so
vauntingly swore that the havoc
of war and the battle's
confusion,
a home and a country
should leave us no more.
Their blood has washed out
their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save
the hireling and slave
from the terror of flight
or the gloom of the grave.
And the star spangled banner in
triumph doth wave o'er the land
of the free and the
home of the brave.
Oh thus be it ever when
freemen shall stand
between their loved home
and the war's desolation.
Blest with victory and peace may
the heaven rescued land praise
the power that hath made
and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must when
our cause it is just,
and this be our motto,
in God is our trust.
And the star spangled banner in
triumph shall wave o'er the land
of the free and the
home of the brave.
>> Give her a hand please.
[ Applause ]
>> Thanks a, well done,
and of course what was
in the Tom Clancy movie
was that last bit.
And conquer we must when
our cause it is just
and this be our, okay.
By the way, I went back and
got the DVD of the commentary.
There are two commentary tracks.
One with Clancy and
the director and one
with the director
and the screenwriter.
Looking for some
interesting tidbits
about why they chose this,
alas none to be found
so don't bother unless you.
The movie's fine as
that kind of thing.
It's one of these movies
where you say oh they're
not going to do that.
Oh they really do that.
Wow, okay.
And then the movie
goes on from there.
But Clancy was more concerned
about the incorrect direction
that the President's motorcade
was driving when they're getting
to the stadium, because,
he's from Baltimore.
And the director's like,
gee I didn't even know
that there was another verse.
So, no, I have yet to find
out why that's in there
or who's idea it actually was.
What do we notice
about the first stanza?
Yes.
>> It ends in a question.
>> It ends in a question,
right.
I mean when Whitney Houston is
singing that, does that sound
like a question to you?
It's like no, I mean
there's like, there's often
that flourish at the top
when they go, you know.
It's a question.
Oh, say does that star spangled
banner yet wave or the home
of the free and the
whatever, the land of the free
and the home of the brave?
Asking a question.
Now let's look at the things
that are repeated in the poem.
What is repeated in the poem?
>> The land of the free
and,
>> Okay, so this stuff.
Like the last couplets.
>> What does it hear?
'Tis the star-spangled
banner, oh,
long may it wave O'er
the land of the free
and the home of the brave!
then and the star-spangled
banner
in triumph doth wave O'er the
land of the free and the home
of the brave and then finally
and the star-spangled banner
in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free
and the home of the brave.
What's going on there?
What's different
amongst those lines?
>> Well in sentence it
is more of like discovery
>> Ok
>> It will keep waving and
the
three the same establishing
that there is triumph in the
moment and it don't wave then
and in the fourth it's,
>> Good, very good so we
have a
difference in mood of the verb
and an intense interrogative
here questioning declarative
of somewhat subjunctive
conditional here all along here
how may it wave to firmly
declarative the star-spangled
banner in triumph doth wave to
something that we might think
of as future tense or even
prophetic it shall wave right?
Suggesting that little
change we can see a progress
and that progress is from
questioning uncertainty
to certainty right there, that's
the process of enlightenment
and then something else,
you might say the projection
of enlightenment out This be
our motto In God is our Trust:
and the star-spangled banner
in triumph shall wave right?
Then conquer we must, When
our cause, it is a just
But I also want you to
think also about the pattern
of imagery that we've got here
because as the head note, right?
This head note tells you the
story I mean he is looking
at this; again we don't hear
this song anymore because it's
so overplayed and there was a
period of time when many of us
in the country didn't really
like hearing it played
because it reminded us
of a particular version
of American patriotism,
that might not have been
the particular version
of American patriotism
that we may believed
in easier these days maybe.
In any case it's also
you grow-up with,
it's kind of remote of the
past, remote of the past?
Densely like?
Come on. Remote of the past?
If you have read
books when growing up.
She kind of hears it , She
is like what is denser,
densely, densely like?
It is just syllables so to
hear it again we need to see it
in some way that we hear it
again, see what is doing,
it's asking a question, right?
Its night time, the four is
being bomb, if the four falls,
the British take over the city.
How will you know
the fourth falls?
The flag, right?
The star-spangled banner is the
flags, you are looking to see
if the US flag is still up there
or its going to be replaced
by the British flag and imagine
the city at night, its dark
and you can't really see so
you've gone from light to dark
and with dark comes
non-lightning
but obscurity questioning
uncertainty, there are slashes
of illumination whose , , .
The rock its red glare gave
proof through the night so BOOM!
FLASH! You can see that that
flag is still there so BOOM!
FLASH! You can see that
the flag is still there
and then what happens?
You get through the night and
gradually you have the coming
of the dawn, you have
the rising of full light
and when you have the
rising of full light,
you get a literal
process of enlightenment
and watch this close that
the flag is still there.
Now, it catches the gleam
of the morning first theme
in full glory reflected
now shines in the stream
of 'tis star-spangled
banner right?
And now you have that certainty
that you didn't have before
so the poem's movement is
not only about the battle
but there is a way which
the battle becomes a kind
of metaphor for this
process of enlightenment
that goes along with, it's kind
of philosophical under pinning's
of early national period.
How can we move from questioning
and uncertainty to certainty?
What will give proof
through the night?
And you might think of this more
generally, it's not just being
about this specific battle
but about being a law
of being the larger national
project of the United Stated
and eventually almost
predictably you move
in to a kind of prophetic
mode, right?
The battle is pretty
much over there, right?
We see that the flag is still
there, we start to think
about all the sacrifices
that have made and then we go
in to our prophetic
mood thus be it ever
when free men shall stand
between their loved home
and the wars desolation
plus victory
and peace made the heaven
rescued land, pray the power
that has made and preserve us
a nation and conquer we must.
Ok so I want you to see that's
the path of a larger pattern
of a poem and part of the
trick of the poem is you do it
through the tenses and moods of
its verbs in the last complex.
Questioning to the subjunctive,
to the fully declarative,
to you might say the
future tense or prophetic.
Who wants to scan online?
Anybody? How about second
sentence, I think that's easy.
On the shore, dimly seen
through the mists of the deep
where the foe's haughty host
in dread silence reposes,
what is that which the breeze,
o'er the towering steep,
as it fitfully blows, half
conceals, half discloses?
On the shore, dimly seen
through the mists of the deep
>> Trochaic
>> Trochaic alright,
how would that scan out?
>> Unstressed, unstressed,
stressed
>> Wait, say it again.
>> Unstressed, unstressed,
stressed
>> Ok, unstressed,
unstressed,
stressed on the shore.
What's the next one?
>> It's the same
>> Unstressed, unstressed,
stressed.
What is that?
It's not a trochee;
it's an anapest, YES!
This is anapestic tetrameter,
a rare meter in English,
it's called the galloping rhythm
and you can see why, it gallops,
it moves on the shore,
dimly seen, through the mist
of the deep where the
foe's haughty host
in dread silence reposes.
Then you can throw and
respond on two periodically
but it is different in
the kind of stately rhythm
of heroic complex dada
dada dada dada, right now!
Dadadan dadadan dadadan
dadada, so that's another one
of the tricks of
the poem, right?
It gives you that
sense of drama of kinds
of heightens passion
precisely through its use
of metrical feet, anapest for
the scavenger hunt, anapest
and this poem are now out
of bounce, you can't talk
about anapest in the
defense of form cannery.
Oh well, there are other
anapest can be found
but this the famous example
in U.S. Literature that I know
of anapestic tetrameter,
right for that we mean four
anapestic feet on the shore,
that's one, dimly seen,
through the mists, of the deep,
questions and thoughts about
this and anything else to say?
I don't know if I have made
you think of this differently
but you can see that it's
a very complicated poem
and it's a poem re-wears
repays thinking
and I think it's a good
example of post-neo classism
and either more so
enlightenment thought in less,
it's not as good an example
of Neo-classism as a poetry
by Swiftly impart
because it gets away
from the kind stately iambic
contender that weekly picks
up from Alexander Pope
so in that sense in terms
of metrical form, I don't think
the defense of form typical
but its theme of enlightenment,
its belief that poetry
can be public and didactic
and then you know
through that way
which is meter works
it's kind of sweetened
that message I think it
is a very good example
of new classical poetry.
Alright, Seewess Swiftly
is an interesting character
because she is both the
most neoclassical of poets
and the most exceptional
of poets
in the neoclassical
period why that would be?
In what way is she exceptional?
Yeah
>> She was a slave
>> Well she was a slave,
Ok
that's true, anything else?
Yes
>> She was a she
>> And she was a she, YES!
Rights of impulses I mean,
ok we have just think of her
as a belonging impart tradition
and would include Mary Rowlens
and Alexander Poet and Bradstry.
Alright, Bradstry is also
trying to carve out of space
for female poetic practice.
Don't worry I am not
threatening your epic poets,
don't worry about it I am going
to carved out my space Wow!
You know, I suggest she
was a kind of subversion
of normal poetic expectation on
Bradstry's part so we belongs
to that kind of tradition,
one of the things
that we might say is that
It's important for her
to have this identity so poems
on various subject religious
and moral, Phillis Wheatley,
Phillis is the name of the ship
of which she came note the
spelling; there's no y in it.
Wheatley is her master, Negro
servant to Mr. John Wheatley
of Boston in New England.
And this is published according
to an act of parliament 1772,
so it's published
in London right?
England and that's important.
So, Wheatley is exceptional
in that way.
Why would she be
therefore be the most
in substance being paradigmatic
in being classical poet?
>> [assumed spelling]
>> Okay, so she's aspiring
to some of the values
of within you class,
she's looking for truth
and wisdom in her poetry.
Yes, let's do a little
more with that.
Do you want to add?
Nope! Anybody?
Yes!
>> [assumed spelling]
>> Very good!
Okay, in fact, let's
look at that,
we can read the whole thing;
let's just talk the
way this works.
You want to read that one?
>> [assumed spelling]
>> Thank you very much!
So, what is this?
This is exactly about that
process being enlightenment
that you were referring
to, right?
>> Where was she?
>> Africa
>> And what was she
when she was in Africa?
What's the adjective she uses?
>> Pagan
>> Pagan is one
>> Benighted
>> Benighted, Benighted,
Right?
That means literally in the
dark, and when she comes,
she's no longer benighted,
she's in the light!
So quite literally, it draws on
the same tropes of enlightenment
that we see in Jefferson's
paragraphs,
that we see in the
defense of Fort McCannery,
plus mercy brought me
forth my pagan lab, right?
Bless you!
So, what else might
we say about this?
There's a kind of
trick in this poem,
as I said there was some
tricks in the other poem,
there's a trick in this one too.
What is it?
Yes?
>> That she might not
be entirely grateful
of the way she was
brought in to America
because she said remember,
Christians, Negros black is cane
that you're violating
Joe and Jane Cane.
>> Okay, why would you do
that?
>> I feel like she's
attracted to dress that becomes
so accusatorial and becomes,
>> Accusatory of what
though?
>> Of, hers not still
not was being appreciated
in the society,
>> That's correct!
I mean, I think that's right.
There's clue that we see
that there's a problem here
that she's addressing.
But, does that idea, if it's
there that there's something,
some blame that Christians
have to accept.
Does that contradict that idea?
That, plus mercy brought
me from my pagan land?
Would she rather have stayed
there, according to this poem?
>> No.
>> No! You're right!
She don't think so, I mean,
there's no way in this poem
that suggests that she has
been available about that.
It was mercy who brought me
from my pagan land taught my
benighted soul to understand
that there's a God, that
there's a Savior too,
once I redemption
neither sought nor knew.
Boom! Period!
Right? So that's a sentence.
Boom! Half of the poem!
Second half of the
poem, as you're pointing
out has a kind of
turnaround to it.
Some and we don't know
who the some are yet.
Some of you are sable, I know,
I mean, look at all the words
for black that there's
some of you are sable
with scornful eye their
color is diabolic dye.
But again, I think I mentioned
this earlier when I was talking
about Ishmael and Moby Dick,
that some people thought
that people from Africa where
descendants of the race of Cane
and that they were marching that
way, that might be one thing,
they might be descendants
of Ishmael
so they are also still
from the outcast.
In our case, there are various
ways of thinking biblically
about why it would be
okay to enslave Africans.
Their colors diabolically
this may be black, you know.
Their colors are diabolic dye.
Remember, Christians, Negros,
black is Cane, may be refined
and joined the angelic train.
The trick is in the
second half of the poem.
Yes?
>> It just seemed she's
so racist in the writing
because she was saying
that there should be acceptance
should be that, how she is sure
that blacks could be refined.
That there is something
completely wrong
because they are not, of you
knows, of for being effective
of the question of being refined
and that all black is Cane.
>> Uhm, Yeah,
>> Specially causing the
angelic train, is the that,
describing the angelic
[inaudible]
>> We would treat
it as a racist if;
I suppose we would
say it's racist
if we think there's something
wrong with black people,
just because there is.
We are treating things that
there's something wrong
with black people if
they come from Africa
and the reason there's something
wrong with black people
if they come from Africa was
because they neither have
redemption neither sought
nor knew.
Anyway, Wheatley
is a person of her,
you might say her context,
and she's Christian.
She's really Christian;
she thinks it's good
to be Christian.
I mean, again this is
some of the power, right?
She's a new and classical poet,
but you still see the power
of Christianity in her thinking.
When writes the poem
to Reverend Whitfield,
of who I'll talk a little
bit more about next time.
Again, it's part of her
commitment to Christianity.
So, what's wrong with black
people is if they came
from Africa, they
didn't know God.
So, that was a mercy, that was
God's, you know, you can think
of a role in center,
God has supposed in me,
you know God has been merciful
to her because He brought her
and she didn't talk about how
it happened but it was a mercy,
it was difficult but
she's gone through it.
For that some kind of role
in same kind of logic,
that's not what the problem is.
The problem is this, that's some
of you are sablewayed
[assumed spelling]
to scornful eye, period!
As if there were periods!
Their color was a
diabolic dye period!
That's it!
That's where they would stop.
Where does she go?
She goes further
than that period.
Right? Remember Christians,
Negros,
black is Cane may be refined
and joined the angelic train.
Now you may say if,
you're right to say,
I suggest that there's something
wrong with black people.
I would say that the basis
of what's wrong is that race,
however, the basis
of what's wrong is
that they haven't been
redeemed, what's wrong
with the Christians,
is that they seemed
to have either forgotten
or willfully wished
to deny the fact that Negros,
black is Cane may be refined
and joined the angelic train.
Onto the racist are
here, but I would argue
that the poem is not racist,
the poem is actually an attack
on racist who believe
that black people
or African people
cannot be Christianized.
She would say that everyone
can be Christianized.
But if wanted to take the
extra leap and say for a minute
that why everybody has
to be Christianized,
can't they be something else.
That's not going to happen, I
mean, that's not who she was.
Some people get upset about
that, asking why is not she more
like pagan, why didn't she
celebrate her paganism?
Or why does not he become
a socialist, why does he,
you'll see, why does he not,
why does he not characterize
like some kind of
economic individualism.
This is the way that we see
as the delimitations
of cultural context.
Wheatley is a progressive
thinker and she's
for anti-slavery,
and anti-racism,
but she is firmly
committed Christian.
But we still haven't
gotten to the trick.
So, what's the trick?
Yes?
>> [inaudible]
>> That's good!
That's very good!
There is a weird ambiguity
of this punctuation.
At the very least you would say
that there is a syntactical
complication
that makes you pause and wonder.
Remember Christians, Negros,
how we addressing the
Christians and the Negros?
No, I mean possibly, but not
really but you have to go back
to make sure, remember
Christians, Negros,
but what they've done, what
I think you're pointing
to is there's a certain kind
of syntactical equivalence
created here,
this are both enclosed
by comma's
and syntactically they seemed
to have the same weight
within the sentence and look how
the poetry slows down, remember,
Christians, Negros, like
three, sazurels, right there!
Slows it down and
creates some kind
of weird syntactical equivalence
betweens these things possibly.
In actual you say no,
remember Christians,
Negros may be refined and
join the angelic train.
That's the actual sentence,
but the weird punctuation
makes you pause
and worry a little
bit about that.
I think that's one
of the tricks.
Although, I don't
think that's the trick.
Yeah?
>> You can't be referring
to some?
>> Who? Some?
>> You were referring
to the some?
Because you know,
>> Yeah, but who is
the some now we know?
>> We thought that
was Christian,
>> Well, Well, it's still
is.
Alright, some of you are
simple ways to score a fly.
So, the Christians are clearly
being implicated in this.
Alright? Some of you , and she's
not going to say all Christians,
she's not getting
it all , 'some'.
But then, there's a kind
of implication that way ,
syntactically , that way too
many Christians believe this.
Some of you are simple
ways to score a fly.
Remember Christians,
And there's a sense
in which it's almost assumed
that the Christians
are not the ones.
If they need to remember
it, they forgotten it.
That would be a good way
of thinking about it.
Possibly, they're
even denying it.
That would be the bad
way of thinking about it.
That's what these are.
Here, The fact that this is
probably Christians is diabolic.
Right? They're the
implications of what seems
to be biblical thinking
here by these 'some.'
That's still not the trick.
Now we're running out of time.
We're going to have
to end on this.
Yes? [Inaudible].
>> It's possible.
It's, Remember what we said
about the coin, except,
that's what they're
talking about.
There's a pun on
'dye' end with 'Y-E'
and , I think that's right.
And, maybe also 'die' too.
>> [inaudible].
>> I think the pun is they
think
that it's not only 'dyed' ,
that they're dyed in
terms of their color ,
but they're stamped that way.
So it's final and done.
That's not the only pun in here.
Come on, we're running
out of time.
Yes?
>> [inaudible].
>> Possibly.
Have to do with,
>> [inaudible]
>> Very possibly, although
we're pre-industrial.
But, yes, there is that
sense of refinement, go ,
What needs to be refined?
>> [inaudible]
>> Right. But, in life,
what are the things
that need to be refined?
I'm not calling on
anybody else yet.
>> [inaudible]
>> Uh huh.
>> [inaudible]
>> Negroes.
You're saying , right?
They're black as what?
>> [inaudible]
>> Right. It's spelled 'K'
as
in cable but if you hear it,
you don't necessarily
hear it that way.
Remember Christians, negroes
black as cane, as in cane sugar,
which is related to slavery ,
clear to everybody who knows
that sugar trade is one of
the reasons for slavery , ,
they're black as cane,
they may be refined
and join the angelic train.
Right? So, it invokes
the pun is on cane.
It invokes that kind of
purification of sugar.
It also indicts the slave trade
all extremely economically.
You didn't believe
she could do poetry?
You didn't believe that a black
woman slave could do poetry?
All you have to do is see
the way this poem works
and you know that she can.
Alright, we're going to take
a 'borrow' then next time.
I'll work it into one
of those lectures.
Alright, thanks a lot.
