Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

“From Gray, that

‘Many a flower is born to blush unseen,

  ‘And waste its fragrance on the desert air’

Catherine is quoting “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray, published in 1751. In this Enlightenment age poem, Gray ponders the lives of those now passed as he walks through a graveyard behind a church and questions what their lives and souls consisted of when still alive. Gray also reflects on the idea that all will die one day. Gray uses the metaphor of a flower that blooms in isolation, in addition to a gem in a cave, to portray the idea that nor all are recognized for their lives. Austen may have selected this line to show how the archetypal heroine often goes unrecognized.

“Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliffe’s; her novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some fun and nature in them.”

“Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Catherine, with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him.

Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho is a classic gothic novel, the genre of which Austen satirizes in Northanger Abbey. Radcliffe’s work follows the heroine Emily whose life is changed upon moving to the castle Udolpho. Catherine reads and enjoys this novel, further confirming her interest in being the archetypal heroine as Austen suggests. When John contradicts himself in his disdain for novels here, Austen again illuminates the role of the novel as a determining factor of status. He attempts to distinguish between high and low-class literature but shows that it is all one when he does not recognize The Mysteries of Udolpho as Radcliffe’s work.

“On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phyllis Wheatley

“Their colour is a diabolic die.”

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

  May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

Phyllis Wheatley refers to Cain, the Biblical child of Adam and Eve, who murdered his own brother out of jealousy. As the first murderer, Wheatley alludes to Cain to show how even the worst of sinners can be redeemed to the divine and be healed. Wheatley’s audience of white Americans would recognize the allusion and make the connection to the overall message.

Darkness is a prevalent theme in this poem as a whole. Wheatley uses the words diabolical die, benighted, and sable to portray the extreme discrimination of the black race in America. Sable, according to the OED, refers to both a dark color itself, as well as “mourning garments.” Benighted also carries a connotation of “the effect of sorrow, disappointment, etc., upon one’s face, prospects, or life.” This adds an element of grief and pain that discrimination in America.

The Sea View, by Charlotte Smith

Charlotte Smith uses severe and powerful language at the turn in the poem to intensify the juxtaposition between the serenity of the first eight lines and the war-torn remaining lines. The plague-spots, demons, death, destructive fires, and so on bring a dark tone that is the antitheses of the preceding lines. The bloody scene is further amplified with the pause between destructive fires and the mangled dead. This forces the reader to focus and emphasize these words which come as a surprise.

British literature from the Restoration period to early Romanticism explores the formation of gender and race through varying forms of text. The slave trade between Africa, Europe, and the Americas alone displays the mass mistreatment of the black race by white slave owners. Discrimination towards women is apparent in the patriarchal society as women are relegated to positions of inferiority and limited to work in the household. Many writers identify the divides based on these identifiers in their works and offer their criticisms on the injustices.

One of the earlier texts, Ooronoko by Aphra Behn, tells the narrative of an African man from his life as a high-status prince in Africa to a slave in the Americas. Behn characterizes Oroonoko as a well-educated man who can speak both English and French, “had nothing of barbarity in his nature,” and had a nose that was “rising and Roman, instead of African and flat.” He is well regarded by all, but through the lens that is he successful despite his race. Behn chooses to depict Oroonoko’s strength in terms of racist conceptions and European features. This whitening of Oroonoko may be in part to appeal to the white audience that is pro-slavery so that Behn can present her abolitionist, albeit limited, message. The extreme brutality that Oroonoko sees and experiences during the ultimate revolt illustrates the horror of slavery, a fact of which Behn’s audience may not have known the full extent. The mistreatment and killings would have revealed the true nature of slavery illuminating some abolitionist view.

Behn also comments on the role of women through the narrator’s telling of the story from the sidelines and the fate of the most prominent woman in the novel, Imoinda. The narrator reflects the role of women in society at large in that she tells the story of the leading man from the periphery, revealing some information in the first person on few occasions. Behn acknowledges the narrator in short phrases throughout the work, but the text reads like a third person narrative for long passages. On the other hand, Imoinda, Oroonoko’s love interest, is characterized in full detail, yet in the end, she is killed by Oroonoko out of mercy for her and her unborn child. Despite her willingness to fight against the slave owners exemplified by her hitting the English governor with a fatal blow, she too is killed at the end of the novel.

This subtle criticism with an appeal to a white audience is also seen in the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley. In “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Wheatley reasserts herself as a Christian convert, denounces the oppression by white Americans and expresses that all people have the capacity to be redeemed. Wheatley writes that despite so many Africans having accepted the Christian faith “some view our sable race with scornful eye/ ‘Their color is a diabolic die,’” showing how unreasonable it is for this sort of discrimination to exist. As a whole, Wheatley’s poetry is in favor of America and having been brought to the country as a young child. Her work is a celebration of Christianity, with some criticism of black oppression in the States. Wheatley’s final message in this poem is: “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,/ May be refin’d, and join th’angelic train.” This means that no matter the race, all people have the ability to convert and go to heaven.

In further works on gender and race, Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Right of Man” (1790) stands a largely popular feminist critique of the society and the monarchy. In this political pamphlet written in response to a pro-monarchy pamphlet by Edmund Burke, Wollstonecraft argues that the inheritance and the subordination of women are among the most pressing issues in England. Wollstonecraft writes that “there are rights which men inherit at their birth… and that, in receiving these, not from their forefathers but, from God, prescription can never undermine natural rights,” meaning that their role as authorities is presented as divine and natural. Their role overrules all other rights. This not only suppresses women to a position of inferiority but also allows for the continuation of slavery. Wollstonecraft counters Burke’s argument for slavery, writing that “we are to submit to the inhuman custom, and term an atrocious insult to humanity the love of our country, and a proper submission to the laws by which our property is secured.” This is a result of “our ignorant forefathers, not understanding the native dignity of man” who have been and continue to rule over English society. Burke’s view only provides protections for the rich, property-owning men, while contentedly leaving the rest of society in poverty or slavery. Wollstonecraft argues against this single-minded complacency, showing that all aspects of society are affected by the treatment of women and slaves and thus must be considered with those criteria in place.

These writers are a sampling of the commentary on race and gender during this time period. Since these issues were contentious, the attention to an audience was key to making sure the argument made in the text is properly received. As a fictional work Oroonoko takes more figurative liberties in presenting some of the same abolitionist and feminist views that Wollstonecraft does in her essay in a narrative form. Wheatley’s poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” also subversively calls for a just treatment of the black race. Though written in the late 17^th and 18^th centuries, these issues are still a major theme in literature. Similar injustices are apparent in our society today and have proven to still be relevant to modern discourse.

Reading Communities Blog

I have often found Romantic poetry particularly difficult to connect to in the past. The tone that comes from, as Wordsworth writes, the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” can seem grandiose and exaggerated. Though Charlotte Smith’s sonnet “The Sea View” is dramatic and emotionally intense, I could agree with the message that Smith was presenting. Smith opens the poem with fanciful images of a shepherd sitting back on a sublime seascape. Smith depicts a bloody scene in which “the mangled dead/ and dying victims then pollute” the waters (12-13), emphasizing the brutality of war. Smith criticizes the ways in which people have created destruction of humanity and environment in the juxtaposition of the serenity and violence. 

As the daughter of Polish immigrants, I have been raised with the stories of great- aunts and uncles who had fought on the front lines of WWII or had been imprisoned in concentration camps. These stories are haunting and have always stayed with me. Last year on my trip to Poland, my brother took me to visit my father’s hometown, which today has a population of about 50. Throughout the small village, my brother pointed out the buildings that were destroyed during the war that are still up to this day as my father had done with him when he was younger. The bleak structures against the expansive green fields were striking. The stark contrast that Smith paints in the sonnet reminded me of this scene. Though what I saw was over 70 years after the war and nowhere near as brutal as the scene in the poem, the result of what man can do in war was clear. 

The poem also seems to aim to instill a sense of fear in the reader through the alliterative language and hellish imagery. The repetition the f and d bring more attention to the lines referring to fire and death. This fear exists around the world to varying extents. New York is sometimes labelled (or is actually) a target of some sort of attack and areas are often guarded with suited and armed officers. The U.S. as a whole is often involved in some sort of military action that is, to some extent, met with opposition and criticism. 

On a different note, as a student in NYC at this given moment, reading any literature with plague in the text recently has brought me to the current pandemic. Though the term, of course, does not describe our circumstances, reading it does remind me of the coronavirus for a fleeting moment, one that I had while reading. Though we are not at war in the city, the unprecedented pandemic has turned a lot of our worlds upside down even aside from social distancing. Thousands have died due to the virus in this city alone. As someone with family members who have been infected in both New York and Poland, the world has felt chaotic, a theme in Smith’s sonnet. 

Charlotte Smith’s “The Sea View” displays common tropes of Romantic poetry. For example, the depiction of nature as beautiful and serene in the first half of the poem is a common Romantic theme. Smith paints a picture of a shepherd lying on a grassy mountain where the “summer sun in purple radiance glow/ blaze on the western water” (5-6) and the overall feeling is “magnificent and tranquil” (7). Smith also creates this sense with the personification of the “bright sea-line mingling with the skies” (3). The land is undisturbed, as is the shepherd taking it all in. Nature is working together to form a source of happiness, a classic of Romanticism. 

Smith dramatically changes the tone at the turn of the sonnet in line 9, using darker and negative language in a critique of war. Smith compares warships sailing to battle to “dark plague-spots” (9) spawned by demons and describe them as “fierce and red/ flash their destructive fires” (11-12). The repetition of the f sound in fierce, flash and fire stresses the detrimental effects of war and brings an intimidating tone. The juxtaposition from pure serenity to a demonic plague of war emphasizes stark transition between what nature can be vs. what it has become.