The Unshorn Fields ... for Which the Speech of England Has No Name

William Cullen Bryant was the answer to a lot of prayers that had been said in America since the 18th century by those desperately seeking an authentic American voice of American poetry.  A question for many American readers and critics had been whether an artist could find in America a subject matter that would put American literature on par with its European counterparts.  Bryant, at least initially, provided the answer to that question, and he would have to do as a genuinely American poet until Walt Whitman came along and let fly with his barbaric yawp.

Bryant was not necessarily a brilliant poet, and certainly not an original one, but that perhaps is what actually made him appealing to so many readers.  (We need to keep in mind that in the nineteenth century people actually read poetry for pleasure and entertainment.  In a survey done before 1840, the American public identified their two favorite writers as Washington Irving and William Cullen Bryant.)  If one's frame of reference for great poetry was the verse produced by someone else--in this case, classical and English poets--then you measure greatness by how close it comes to that frame of reference.  True originality can cause problems (as Whitman would find out), because we can't measure it against what we know and with which we are familiar.

So what then made Bryant an American poet?  To a large degree because he drew his inspiration from what many in the 18th and 19th century considered to be one of America's most distinct characteristics: its landscape.  Certainly in England you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a nature poet.  But America's nature was different--it was big and dangerous and wild and still populated with wild people.  Bryant infuses his poetry with a transcendentalist sensibility, and uses near-biblical cadences in his verse, resulting in poetry that raised the American landscape (and consequently America itself) to a profound level.

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains - Albert Bierstadt

"Thanatopsis" is considered by many to be what's been called a "proto-Transcendentalist" poem; that is, it's one of the earliest literary expressions of a transcendentalist world-view.  The poem is fundamentally a meditation on death--not exactly new material for poetry.  Since we're still working out the principles of transcendentalism, we won't approach this poem through the filter of transcendentalism; rather, let's try to understand Bryant's perceptions of death as something that can also help lead us to an understanding of transcendentalism.

The first thing to think about is the nature of God in this poem.  Second, notice that while Bryant certainly seems to think that Death is not the end, he also never describes or talks about an after life--at least not the conventional after life.  What is the after life for Bryant?  Here the key section of the poem is the third stanza (beginning with line 31).  Finally, Bryant's point is not to obsess about death; as he tells his reader's in the last stanza "So live...," because death should not be feared.  But note that he says nothing in the last stanza about finding comfort in God--God is not mentioned at all.  So where does the comfort come from?

Just Like a Wheel Inside a Wheel

William Cullen Bryant's poem "Thanatopsis" brings us to one of the most idiosyncratic spiritual philosophies in American culture: transcendentalism.  It's difficult to account for the long-standing notoriety of this philosophy (to call it a religion would be inaccurate), considering that relatively few advocated it.  (Perhaps, to some degree, because it is a bear to understand.)  Typically we associate it with the writers of American romanticism, specifically people like Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau and perhaps the most celebrated of them all, Walt Whitman.  Hawthorne dabbled in it, but mostly found it mildly amusing, and Melville, ever the contrarian, thought transcendentalists were basically nuts. 

So why did it become so well known?  Part of the reason, I think, is that it is in many ways classically American--pretty much every part of the philosophy was borrowed from somewhere else, and we cobbled the pieces together into something wholly new.  (It's pretty much a given that in most circumstances in our history, we did not invent new cultural forms--we borrowed and adapted.)  So transcendentalism is a mix of Plato, Hinduism, Confucianism, German Existentialism, Kierkegaardian philosophy, assorted form of Eastern mysticism, and good old-fashioned Christianity.

Another reason for its enduring fame is that it came along at a time--first half of the 19th century--when our writers and artists were desperately trying to separate themselves from the Old World--particularly England--and establish their own cultural identity.  They were trying to figure out what exactly is American literature.  Transcendentalism at its best tries to accommodate two particularly significant aspects of American cultural identity: individualism and democracy. 

So what is it?  Well, the first step, before we turn our attention to Bryant, is to tease out its groundwork values, and to do that I'm going to ask you to deconstruct an image.  Below I've placed an image that metaphorically captures the essential values of transcendentalism.  Your task is to look at the image and figure out its implications.  If this image represents the essence of transcendentalism (and it does), what do you think this tells us about the nature of human relationships, the nature of human relationships to the universe, the nature of relationships of all living things, the nature of God.

The Wonders of the Visible World

If Cotton Mather profoundly believes in a vibrant interconnectedness between the supernatural world and this world, Thomas Paine casts a skeptical eye on that proposition, and --appropriate to one of the major philosophical forces of the Age of Reason--use logic and reason to deconstruct it. 

Even more so than his other Deist contemporaries, such as Jefferson, Paine sought to illuminate the fundamental flaws of reason that lay behind religion .  Since Paine was not particularly good (or even particularly interested) in approaching this issue with some diplomacy, you can probably guess that he was one of the more controversial writers of his era.  Nevertheless, his application of reason to issues of faith illustrates well the rationalist view that would displace puritanical world views and galvanize what was and probably always will be the contentious relationship between the sacred and the secular in this culture. 

Readers often confound Paine's assault on religion and religious structures with an assault on faith itself, though a careful reading of Paine reveals that he clearly distinguishes between the two.  And that generally is true of other rationalists and Deists--they commonly accepted the existence of God; they had trouble accepting that God needed spokespeople to do His business, or even that God had any interest in us whatsoever.  You have to remember that much of the impetus that lay behind the development of the dominant philosophies of the Age of Reason, especially in Europe, was the persistent institutional oppression by churches and the spiritual leaders of formal religions.  Those of a revolutionary mindset recognized that a major reason church leaders often claimed a special intermediary relationship with God was so that they could maintain their positions of cultural and political power. 

Thomas Paine

Paine's target isn't God; it's those who presume to speak for God.  (And remember, logically it makes no sense that God would need anyone to speak for Him. )  Paine was well aware of the bloody history of things done in the name of God--he's not that far removed historically from the Salem Witch Trials.  If you parse Paine's argument, it's really not that complicated:

1. We pin our faith on what other human beings tell us about God (e.g., The Bible).  There may have once been a person to whom God communicated directly, but as Paine says, "it is a revelation to that person only."  Everything beyond that is filtered.  It's akin to the party game in which person A whispers a phrase to person B, and by the time we get to person Z the original message has likely been lost.
2. Since the original message--and Paine does not necessarily believe there was one, but being the good rationalist that he was, he was willing to entertain that for the sake of argument--inevitably gets filtered by human beings, who are flawed, it's unreasonable to expect that the original message from God is intact.
3. So why in the world then do we unquestioningly believe what these intermediaries tell us?  For Paine the core problem isn't that we believe; it's that we unquestioningly believe.

For Paine, Mather's ideology would be the poster child for his argument.  Mather's problem (at least as Paine would see it) is that he pins his argument upon the unquestioned belief that the supernatural commingles with the natural world, a belief handed to him by his forebears, who had that belief handed to them by their forebears, and so on and so forth.  This leads to a fundamental logical flaw in Mather's argument--the evidence does not empirically proved the presence of Satan; rather, Mather presupposes the presence of Satan and makes the evidence fit his beliefs.  The result?  Much human suffering.

In both Mather and Paine you are seeing a snapshot of the antagonistic relationship between the sacred and secular that has been a  part of our culture since we first landed on these shores.

A Dreadful Knot of Witches

The Salem Witchcraft Trials, of which Cotton Mather writes in his Wonders of the Invisible World, were something of a tipping point in American culture.  While it would be naive to suggest that these trials ended the impact of Puritans upon American culture (and as I've said a number of times, their influence still persists in 2009), the trials certainly diminished them--and to a degree those directly involved with the trials knew it.  This was an event that took on a life of its own and moved beyond the control of those supposedly in control.  What began seemingly as a childish prank exploded into a kind of civil war in the town of Salem. 

Part of the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials was that the disputes among the citizens of Salem had more to do with landgrabbing, personal conflicts, and problems with those who behaved outside of the norm than with genuine belief that Satan chose Salem as his personal playground.  However much those involved tried to cloak their actions in moral righteousness, the fact was that what happened stemmed from everyday human greed and pettiness.  Note, for example, in Mather's description of Martha Carrier's trial, how often he remarks upon Carrier's abrasive personality and the "differences" the witnesses commonly have with her--including Abbot's dispute involving land.  So how did things get so out of control?  The Puritan world view, in which God and the supernatural directly insert themselves into our world, and in which God had made the Puritans His chosen people, created a context within which claims of witchcraft had to be taken seriously--not to do so would essentially invalidate a fundamental precept of Puritanism--and acted upon.  Witnesses who claimed witchcraft would know exactly what the potential consequences of that claim would be. 

Martha Carrier's Headstone

The trials ultimately made the Puritans look old, tired, irrelevant and mean-spirited.  By 1692 science had made a significant impact upon the world-view of humans, and events that had once seemed mysterious or supernatural now had rational, quantifiable explanations.  In such a world Puritanical claims of New England being the "devil's territories," as Mather puts it, seemquaint and harmless--until those presumptions about the world lead to the executions of dozens of people at the hands of judges who themselves did not necessarily believe witchcraft had anything to do with what was going on.

Cotton Mather

When reading Mather, it's important to try to tease out the assumptions about the world that allow him make the assertions that he makes.  It's tempting to dismiss Mather as a loon for believing what he believes, but his view is consistent with Puritan beliefs.  It would also be a serious mistake to dismiss Mather as ignorant.  The fact was that Mather was a voracious reader, including scientific texts (remember that the Puritans placed a great deal of value in literacy and knowledge), and was one of the most formidable thinkers in our history.  His text on Wonders of the Invisible World is not the ramblings of some crank wearing an aluminum hat.  It's an exercise of powerful logic--of reason--that's operating within a particular spiritual and philosophical world view.  We can miss the logic because we would likely dismiss the underpinning world view. 

Beyond the Custom of Her Sex

In many ways, simply having Anne Bradstreet's poetry available to us is an accomplishment.  Writing as she did in the 17th century, Bradstreet worked within a cultural environment that did little to encourage women to write, and at worst actively discouraged writing.  Typically in this period women did not have access to formal education.  Furthermore, printing, publishing and distributing a book was a relatively expensive proposition, and given that financial independence or self-sufficiency for women was unlikely, publishing a book meant depending upon the beneficence of others.  The rigid domestic roles of women further mitigated against an independent writing career.  The notion that a woman could or should define herself beyond her place within the household violated cherished cultural norms.  Anything that might distract from the roles of wife and mother would have been regarded with more than a little bit of scorn.  As an example, a minister commenting upon the efforts of a woman he knew (not Bradstreet) attempting to publish a book wrote "your printing of a book, beyond the custom of your sex, doth rankly smell."

Anne Bradstreet

So how was Bradstreet able to emerge from this state of things?  It would be nice and inspirational to say that she did so by virtue of her strength of will and determination--but that would be naive.  No doubt, she had will and determination--but she also had the good fortune to be born into comfortable economic and social circumstances.  In short, she was born into a class for whom the "luxury" of education and writing was readily available.   She had the advantage of having private tutors, as well as the support (including financial) of her family.  Nevertheless, Bradstreet's accomplishment as a published poet was no mean feat.

A key step in reading and discussing her poems lies in reading them in the order in which the children die.  Clearly in reading these poems (and others), Bradstreet suffered a good deal of loss, though that did not necessarily make her terribly distinct in her time.  What's interesting, though, is to gage the change in tone as she moves from one poem to the next and continues to struggle with the mounting losses.  What I would like you to do is focus especially on the poems "In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet" and "On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet," a poem describing the death of a child some 4 years after the first.  Does her attitude about death and God change, even if slightly, from one poem to the next?  Pay close attention to the language she uses to describe death in the first poem, and compare that to the language she uses in the second.

The Cat Doth Play, Then After Slay

Even if this class represents your first extensive exposure to American literature, you should have no trouble by now noticing that issues of faith and religion are central to the development of American literature.  Much of that centrality comes from the persistent antagonism in our culture between values rooted in faith and religion and values rooted in secularity.  If we've been paying any attention to this country over the last couple of decades or so, those two different sets of values have been butting heads constantly.  This is not a new thing, however.  Let's not forget that while we tend to focus our attention on the Puritans when speaking of the early settlement of this country, we also need to keep in mind that the Puritans came over with more secular-minded merchants, professionals and soldiers.  Much as today, those two groups did not get along very well--hence the Mayflower Compact.  (A little aside here--a myth about the Puritans is that they sought to create a theocracy, a government based on religion and run by religious figures.  In fact, the Puritans understood a rudimentary concept of separation of church and state.  While ministers wielded a great deal of cultural power, ministers were typically not involved in government.  That would begin to change around the time of the Second Great Awakening, a post for another time.)

So one could reasonably say, I think, that with matters of religion and secularity, this country was born in contentiousness, and we haven't looked back since.  We've seen the contentiousness in Melville, who basically mistrusted anything that smacked of religion.  Thomas Morton openly mocked the Puritans.  John Winthrop reminded his listeners in no uncertain terms that if they're going to claim to be Christian, they better behave like it.  Hawthorne in typical fashion is more circumspect about all this, but many of his stories, including those we've read, are driven by the clash of the sacred and the secular.

In a previous post I had explained a bit about the religious philosophy that informed the Puritans.  In preparation for reading and discussing the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, I'd like us to start thinking about how Puritans perceived children, specifically the religious education of children and the fundamental lessons about the world which the Puritans wished to impart to their children.  I had mentioned in an earlier post that literacy was extremely important to the Puritans, and a major reason for that was so the children could read the Bible.  (Though also remember that the Puritans generally were well read, and did not shy away from reading secular texts.)
What you'll find below are a few illustrations taken from one of the major sources of education for Puritan children: The New England Primer.  What I'd like you to do is take a look at the illustrations, and talk about what seem to be the ways in which the Puritans perceived children and their roles in a universe governed firmly by the hand of God.

 

What I Am About

For most mainstream white Americans in the first half of the 19th century (as well as other times in our history), the notion of personal autonomy has been more of a question of degree.  That is, how much control does one have over one's own life, rather than does one have control over one's own life.  The answer to that question often hinged on money--more money, more freedom to do what you please.  We may value autonomy and individualism as abstract moral concepts, but to a degree--perhaps even a great degree--they are also economic concepts. 

For Frederick Douglass, however, personal autonomy was more straightforward.  As a slave, he had none, at least none that was recognized socially, politically or culturally.  His autobiography, then, functions differently than most autobiographies generated in American literature at this time.  A typical American autobiography presented the writer as an exemplum, an example of how a life should be lived in order to achieve moral and social standing.  Probably one of the best, and most popular examples of this would be Ben Franklin's autobiography.  But Franklin's readers had fundamental ways with which to identify with Franklin--they shared a culture and the values intrinsic to that culture.  Douglass had no such advantage.  For one thing, most of Douglass's readers were white, and lived in the North--there was no possible way these readers could empathize with Douglass or even begin to understand the circumstances of his life. 

This writer-reader problem is further exacerbated by the fact that for many white Americans, race and slavery were separate issues.  In our time we would struggle with this notion, but at the time Douglass wrote his Narrative one could be vehemently opposed to slavery, yet believe that Blacks were fundamentally inferior to whites.  (Though there were whites who both opposed slavery and disdained the concept of racial inferiority.)  Slavery was a human rights issue; racial hierarchies were a social issue rooted in biology.  The more contemporary idea that race itself is culturally constructed was an idea not available to Americans in the early 19th century.  (Though Melville comes close to articulating that idea in his novella, Benito Cereno.)

Common Illustration in Abolitionist Texts

Douglass also had to contend with readers doubting the authenticity of his text.  Douglass's narrative is one of hundreds of slave narratives written from about 1830 - 1865.  Slave narratives typically detailed the experiences of that author in slavery.  Their primary purpose was not literary; their primary purpose was political: to bring about the end of slavery.  Since most of the slaves who published their stories had little or no formal education (and often could not simply read or write), they needed what were called amanuenses--educated whites, typically abolitionists, who would edit or ghost-write the story.  As you can probably figure out, slavery apologists would point to this relationship as reason to doubt the credibility of the slave's story.  How does one know that the abolitionist didn't simply write the whole thing and slap a slave's name onto the text?  That's why you'll commonly see attached to the slave narratives documents certifying the authenticity of the text.  If you look at the beginning of Douglass's narrative, you'll see a letter from Wendell Phillips and a preface by William Lloyd Garrison--two culturally powerful whites.  The purpose of these documents is to let readers know that they can trust the information Douglass presents.  The hard truth is that without these documents, many readers would have seen Douglass's work as a work of fiction.

It also didn't help Douglass that he was a superbly skilled writer.  While most narrators simply related facts, Douglass uses stylistic embellishment, metaphor and symbolism, imagery, literary references--stuff that white readers would not have thought Black writers were capable of using.  As long as Black writers restricted themselves to facts, they would be fine, but the racial perceptions of the time suggested that Blacks were incapable of higher acts of imagination.  Douglass's skill, then, also brought the authenticity of the text into question, since readers could not fathom a relatively uneducated Black man being this skilled with language.

Frederick Douglass

And yet ... this was an extremely popular book, one of the best sellers of its day.  (As a whole, the slave narratives were popular.)  So in spite of all the obstacles, Douglass managed to establish a connection to his readers.  The parts of the narrative I asked you to read hopefully show you how extraordinary this was.  The first part, what I'll call Douglass's Creation Story, immediately announces to the reader why and how he is different.  Douglass begins by separating himself from his readers, not by making a connection to them.  The second part deals with a particularly touchy issue at this time--slave violence.  Little terrified whites, both South and North, more than the possibility of a slave uprising.  That's why Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion reverberated through the nation, and why Thoreau's defense of John Brown is noteworthy. 

So my question is simply how do you think he is able to do this?  Or to ask the question in a more complex way, how is Douglass able to exploit revolutionary concepts of individualism, autonomy and natural rights to establish common ground with his readers?