Dear class—

I wanted to write you this letter as we kick off the work for this class in earnest.

I don’t really subscribe to the “great works” model of literary study and I’m particularly resistant to how notions of “capital-L” Literature often carry dismissive and exclusionary connotations of “high” culture. At the same time, I believe that literary study does not necessarily have to be this way, especially since telling stories represents such an important manner in which we come to understand ourselves, contest imposed ways of knowing the world, and seek to constitute both differently.

I imagine that you have already been reflecting on the challenge of reading and responding to eighteenth century works. The cliché that we read literature in order to expose ourselves to, as the English literary critic Matthew Arnold famously wrote, “the best of what’s been thought and said,” feels to me utterly inadequate given the fact that the relationship of the field of English literature to histories of imperialism has also clearly had a hand in transmitting some of the worst of what has been said and thought—and done. The literary texts we’re beginning to explore in the course, starting this week with Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, reflect—even when they’re contesting—languages of race, class, and gender that will feel, on one hand, completely “dated.” Yet, in some ways they will also feel uncomfortably familiar given the centrality of these categories to the inequalities of our time. I have to confess openly my trepidation that a college-level class like this not “legitimate” problematic languages, stereotypes, and representations that shouldn’t be presented as subjects of legitimate debate.

So, I solicit your help and feedback throughout this semester in working through these issues. I want the assignments for this course to invite you take your experiences as students, readers, scholars—and, well, as people!—seriously as standpoints from which to produce knowledge that will also be useful for future students, who will come to these texts from similar places that you are now.

Therefore, I wanted to check in, but also to hear from you. What life experiences brought you to study English literature at Lehman and/or this class in particular? What questions, interests, and/or trepidations do you still have about either a) the historical scope of the course and its readings; or b) the collaborative work for the course? Ideally, what would you hope to get out of this course? What are your ideas for better fulfilling those expectations?

If you could, write me a letter back (as long or short as makes sense for you) by next week, Feb. 17. Email it to me at my Lehman email (or if you’d rather hand-write your letter, slip it in my English department mailbox). I’m looking forward to hearing from you and continuing these conversations throughout the semester.

Onward,
Prof. Rumore

Aphra Behn (1640-1689)

Much about Aphra Behn’s life has been lost to history. However, her work—in particular her plays—were quite famous during her lifetime. After her death, however, her works mostly fell out of print, dismissed by later critics as vulgar and risqué. Virginia Woolf was one exception to this critical dismissal, as she wrote in A Room of One’s Own (1928) that “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their mind.” More recently there has been much greater critical interest in Behn’s work: in particular Oroonoko, for its depiction of early modern notions of gender, race, and empire in flux.

As the biographical notes in the Norton Anthology of English Literature argues, Behn “drew on a range of worldly experience that would be closed to women in the more genteel ages to come. . . . She scorned hypocrisy and calculation in her society and commented freely on religion, science, and philosophy. Moreover, she spoke as a woman. Denied the classical education of most male authors, she dismissed ‘musty rules’ and relished the immediate human appeals of popular forms” (2178-2179). Though Behn was known predominantly as a playwright, prose fiction was one of the popular forms she experimented with and Oroonoko is considered an early example of the English novel. Like many early novels, Behn presents the narrative as a “true history” told through the observations of a first-person narrator. Though it’s hard to know for sure, her depictions of Surinam in Oroonoko likely drew from first-hand experience. Her depictions of West Africa likely didn’t though, as the royal intrigue of these sections of the novel bear little resemblance to actual West African societies and instead draw from popular European courtly romances. Scholars also tend to regard the character of Oroonoko as an imaginative invention.

Behn held royalist views, but this doesn’t necessarily reflect a “conservative” disposition, as she appears to have been motivated by her dislike of what she took to be the rigid morality of the Puritans and Non-conformists (who held power during the Interregnum). She even spent some time as a spy for Charles II. These views influenced the depiction of Oroonoko as a “royal slave.” Thus, we might ask: what are the intersections between the novel’s depictions of transatlantic colonialism and Behn’s royalism?

Transatlantic Enslavement

Oroonoko, of course, depicts the transatlantic slave trade and the labor of enslaved Africans in the sugar plantations in Surinam (which, by the time of the publication of Oroonoko had become a Dutch colony). While, of course, transatlantic enslavement began long before the period we’re studying, the long eighteenth century saw the growth of British imperial wealth and power that largely depended on the uncompensated labor of enslaved Africans on the sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations of the Caribbean and colonial America. The War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714), which has a legitimate claim to being the first modern “world” war, concluded with Britain gaining commercial rights to supply enslaved African laborers to the Spanish American colonies (known as the asiento) and supplanting the Dutch as the most powerful imperial force in the Indian Ocean region. By the end of the Restoration period, we can begin speaking of Britain as the dominant imperial power in the world. Oroonoko, taking place while this history was very much in motion, is an ambivalent text in regards to colonial questions. While Behn clearly critiques aspects of transatlantic slavery, nowhere does she disavow the colonial project. Additionally, her depiction of Oroonoko, even when sympathetic, often relies on racist caricatures. How should we understand this ambivalence in the novel?

The period in English history known as the “Restoration” begins in 1660 with the return of Charles II to the throne, following the eleven year period of republican rule known as the “Interregnum” (1649-1660). The “Cavalier Parliament” of the era is particularly characterized by the enactment of exclusive legislation aimed at Catholics and Non-Conformist Protestants. Following Charles II’s death in 1685, however, the country was plunged into turmoil due to the ascension of his son, James II, a Catholic, to the throne. While the two major political parties of the era, the Whigs and Tories, were divided on their support for Parliament versus the Monarchy (or, mercantile interests versus landed interests), both sides opposed the establishment of a Catholic dynasty in England. Thus, Parliament negotiated for the Dutch prince William of Orange to assume the throne in 1688, an act known to history as the “Glorious Revolution.” While the Glorious Revolution is generally viewed as the beginning of modern notions of “Great Britain” as a unified entity, it also created factions and fissures always in the background throughout the 18th century. James II would continue to have his supporters, particularly in Scotland, who considered him the rightful King of England: these supporters were known as “Jacobites.” The first literary text we’ll read for next week, Oroonoko, released the same year as the Glorious Revolution, is quite clear in its royalist sympathies and assumes that its readers know something of this background. The Restoration period also saw the emergence of “Great Britain” as a national identity, coming to a head in particular with the 1707 Union of England, Scotland, and Wales.

The excerpts we read from Philippa Levine’s The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset extends this history beyond a simply “domestic” framing. So, together, let’s unpack and try to “map” the imperial connections Levine illustrates for us. Doing so will definitely help us approach the literary texts to follow in the course. Here’s what we’ll do:

1. Break into four groups—each assigned to consider one of the assigned chapters: Uniting the Kingdom; Slaves, Merchants and Trade; Settling the “New World”; and Britain in India.
2. As a group, discuss what you find to be the important arguments in your assigned chapter.
3. List the key places and dates that appear in your chapter. Why are they historically important?
4. As a group, draft a paragraph that explains what you find to be the key takeaways from your discussions of the assigned chapter.
5. Post that takeaway as a comment on this blog. (This will also allow us to gain some familiarity with the website.)