William Cowper 'The Negro's Complaint'

William Cowper's poem 'The Negro's Complaint' raises ethical questions from an ontological prospective by showing the absurdity in enslaving a race of human-beings who share the same human capacities of both thought and emotion. It is ridiculous to exclude people from their "people-ness" due to their skin color.  The lines in particular "Skins may differ, but affection/ Dwells in white and black the same." reminded me of Spinoza in his "Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometric Order" with the concept of "affect"; it follows that "affection" or the capacity for change(both psychologically and physiologically) is the haecity and is closest thing we have to essence or eternal form. That is why it follows equal capacities means equal en su genre. Their is no deviating substantial essence that can be identified to deviate from actual potentials. The poem demonstrates the same affections that black people face to that of any human-being by expressing the suffering that slavery imposes on them. I really liked the closing lines "Prove that you have human feelings/ Ere you proudly question ours!". The prospectives that the poet used were effective in exalting his argument in critique of the unmoral society.

Hope

A recent theme in some of the stories being read is hope. Now, what's the difference between "The Brownie of Black Haggs" and the hope portrayed in that story, as compared to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"? In "The Brownie of Black Haggs", hope is portrayed in three different ways. One is the colley that will never hunt again, for fear of the gun; that is completely against it's nature, and so maybe there is some hope for humanity. On the mirror side, the hound that chases the fox almost to the point of death, til it cannot physically chase it's enemy anymore; chasing the enemy is natural, but it is supernatural to chase the fox to the point of near death, and so maybe humanity will follow this route. But some of humanity is expressed through Mrs. Wheelhope, who, literally, has no hope of survival. Her supernatural obession destroyed her relationships with everyone she knew, and, in the end, it took her life.
Compare "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". In that story, it is, at points in the Mariner's story, hopeless. And yet...something happens, and hope is restored. Maybe it is an act of God. Maybe it's the fact that when things go wrong, such as the death of the Albatross, the Mariner is shamed and guilty, and is either punished or punishes himself, laying down his pride and anger and grief. Or maybe it's sheer dumb luck. But if you mirror the actions of the Mariner to humanity, we may destroy something unintentionally, but if we lay down our pride, and apologize and do what we can to fix the mistake(s) we made, perhaps salvation and hope will again rise up with us.

The Poetry of Nature

I thought it was interesting that Coleridge says in the “Origin of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’” that he uses the combination of moonlight and sunlight to portray “the poetry of nature”. The supernatural is viewed in both darkness and light in this poem. He speaks of this woman referred to as “Life-In-Death” who kills all of his shipmates and takes him for herself. Right when he fears there is no hope for him, Heaven’s angels come and recuse him and help steer the ship back to his land. Coleridge uses the moonlight to show the Mariner praying for help and then watching the angels by moonlight come to rescue him. This is the most obvious use of light and dark. However, I think Coleridge was using light and dark to portray “nature” in many different ways. Besides the obvious use of darkness and moonlight, and light and dark supernatural events, I believe Coleridge was also describing human nature in “the poetry of nature”. The Mariner made a great mistake and suffered, but once he was given redemption, he decided to devote his life to love and reverence. It starts off dark and ends with a light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. I believe Coleridge used many forms of nature by using light and dark to show actual nature, supernatural nature, and human nature. The combination is the true poetry of nature to Coleridge.

"As Idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."

Like many of the other readers, I was incredibly struck by the imagery in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  In a more literal interpretation, I could not help but think of some of the major painters of the Romantic Era in art while reading about the themes of isolation and the sea. Two artists that are primarily known for these themes were Casper David Friedrichs and J.M.W Turner. Friedrich's paintings often deal with desolation and somberness, and the background of our blog is actually a piece of his, entitled The Sea of Ice, which is incredibly fitting to the story. The majority of Turner's paintings are depictions of a savage sea, with a few that emulate the imagery expressed in the poem.  The passage I found particular represented by a painting was, “Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.” While several of Turners paintings are very fitting to this passage, one that I feel represents it wonderfully is Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth. While the sea depicted is very violent, the boat is ultimately and entirely stagnant, just like the ship and sailors are in the poem.

Imagery with Emotion and the Sun

In the ancient mariner, I believe the storyteller uses a lot of imagery description to best describe the sailor’s emotional ordeal they are going through.  An example would be the scene where he attempts to pray, but a bad whisper discourages his heart, which may be the other part of him that wishes to give up all hope. The poems imagery and the characters emotions go in harmony with each other in order for the reader to be able to obtain a better grasp of the tragic scenes played out and the agony the character endures. Also one thing to note is the sun is represented as a vengeful god that punishes the sailors while the moon seems to be a calming figure that gives peace to the sailors. Perhaps the author was referring God as the sun who gives and takes life in the poem.  

The Many Faces of The Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of my favorite Romantic era poems. I think it's important to note that the version we read fro class is one of a few different versions that Coleridge published/revised throughout his life time. One of the earlier versions is "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere" (published in the 1798 version of Lyrical Ballads) which features a more archaic language than the 1817 version we read for today. There's also a version published in 1800 (Scroll/use the search function to find page 151, where the poem starts) which differs slightly from the version we read today (I didn't re-read all three versions for class at the time of this post). Each version has its own various eccentricites, and each version also I think delivers a slightly different level of impact for the overall political/societal message that Coleridge has interwoven into the narrative.

Edit: Added Links to other versions; modified for clarity.

Obsessions and Crazy People

“The Brownie of the Black Haggs” is one of the most interesting stories I’ve ever read, by far. Any time there is some true insanity and mental instability in a story, I get intrigued. Especially interesting is how much more perturbed Lady Wheelhope seems thanks to the contrast in her surrounding characters. She’s the only insane one in a relatively large cast of perfectly normal, if not plain people. What most interested me, though, is the specific way that Lady Wheelhope’s insanity manifests itself. She’s not Ophelia walking around speaking nonsense, or Lady Macbeth being haunted by hallucinations. She is obsessed, fully consumed by an emotion. It really reminds me of Wuthering Heights, which deals with a similar obsessive madness. I won’t spoil the story, but trust me, it’s...well, I’ll call it a 19^th century, high-class, English Jerry Springer.

Hogg's Scottish Elements

I agree with dep’s post. The text pretty much explicitly says that James Hogg was unappreciated in his own time. Ironically he was illiterate for much of his life, and teased about his accent. This is ironic considering part of the allure of his writing is its Scottish elements. The dialogue in The Brownie of Black Haggs is written in Scottish dialect. It is nearly impossible to read the story without recognizing the author’s heritage. Hogg closes the story with the tale of the fox and the hound that sounds as though it could have been passed down orally. For me it added an element of familiarity to the text. It makes the entire story seem as though it was told to you by a friend. It makes it seem as if it could almost be true, like a neighborhood myth, the beast in the Sandlot. Hogg’s last sentence about not believing the tale makes you wonder if there are any details you can believe within the story, which makes the gothic elements of the story more entertaining.  

The curse the opens the eyes of the Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner contained the basic structure that both Wordsworth and Coleridge had discussed. The two Cardinal points of poetry (according to the Biographia Literaria, chapter 14 (1817) in the anthology of the conversations between Coleridge and Wordsworth) it had to contain: The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by the faithful adherence to the truth of nature. The second was the power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying colors of imagination. Coleridge achieved both of these two points of poetry by adding both a spiritual force to the singing albatross and by emphasizing color (to the water, dead corpse, water thirst lips, etc.) despite the previous establishment of an eerie setting. The reader is able to sympathize with the mariner once he realized that killing the Albatross was a mistake because the bird helped the by bringing good luck to their voyage and instead of him appreciating what the bird brought to them he killed, bringing forth a curse to him, his crew and his ship. It isn’t till the end that he realizes that he had taken his blessings for granted. After he “prayeth well, who loved well both men and bird and beast.” “God who loveth us, He made and loveth all”. The bird can be taken as a metaphor for slaves, they were taken for granted too and once they were killed, and their life was missed because of their good deeds.

“In consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, and hearts that neither feel or understand.” …Wordsworth         

Music and Cowper's poems

Several of Cowper's abolitionist poems were set to music borrowed from other poems and songs.

"The Negro's Complaint" was set to the tune of "Hosier's Ghost," which was a popular 18th century song with very specific historical and political content:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Admiral_Hosier%27s_Ghost

As you can see, "Hosier's Ghost" adopted its music from another song, "Come and Listen to my Ditty, or the Sailor's Complaint":

http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3c/IMSLP134000-WIMA.0b2c-sailor-watts.pdf

And the "Sailor's Complaint" which was set to music by George Frideric Handel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j1CUKkSv0M

What do these musical associations add to the poem? How do they help advance the abolitionist agenda of Cowper's poem?

As the chorus suggests, "Sweet Meat has Sour Sauce" was intended to be sung to the tune of "For he's a jolly good fellow." 

This tune became popular in the early 18th century by association with the French song "Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre" ("Marlborough Has Left for the War"), a burlesque on the false report of the Duke of Marlborough's death at the battle of Malplaquet in 1709. Here's a recording of the tune with the French lyrics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqRpPMOaMIA

This is John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough:

Again, when Cowper sets his poem to this tune, what is the effect of the reader? How does it work with the message of the poem?

Sentimentalism and Slave Suicides

In the latter half of the 18^th century, we see an increase of slave narratives in novels and poetry with an abolitionist theme.  These literary forms served as the catalyst for the spread of anti-slave trade/anti-slavery ideas by connecting foreign distress to the middle-class social realms. In an earlier post, someone noted the use of shock value in Cowper’s poem, “The Slave Trader in the Dumps.” With the use of shock value and slave narratives to “defamiliarize” the status quo perceptions of slaves, and slavery, there came a certain Euro-American sentimentalism spreading via novels and poetry regarding the conditions of the slaves. Because of these horrific conditions, while on the ships and even after they have landed, suicide among the slaves was quite common. The Africans saw suicide not only as a means to escape the wretchedness of their inhumane treatment, but also, according to their religious beliefs, a way to return to Africa (provided that their corpse maintained its integrity). The idea of corporeal integrity was mainly caused by a fear of European cannibalism (why else would the Europeans capture and treat the Africans like they did?) *this actually did happen, when the sailors had run out of food, for them or for the slaves*. In addition to the use of suicide for freedom, the slaves also used suicide to punish their masters; the slaves were a commodity, bought and maintained for the specific purpose of the accumulation of wealth. I believe that some of the slaves had an understanding of this and killed themselves for this reason. However, suicide was not always the solution, because no matter what the master did to the slaves, they were still human beings – with the intelligence and resentments of human beings. *Enter slave revolts*

The cultural importance of this literature in the 18^th century added with the slave revolts, specifically with the success of the Haitian slave rebellion, and with the work of the abolitionists allowed for the legal abolition of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery in British colonies.

Shock Value in "the Slave Trader in the Dumps"

Looking back on Cowper's "The Slave Trader in the Dumps", it is interesting to note just how often shock value was used in famous works of that time period. He disturbs us with this narrator who seems to delight in the misery of the slaves. Jonathan Swift  told the poor to feed their babies to the rich in A Modest Proposal, and Robert Browning creeped out his readers with the sinister implications in My Last Duchess. Shock value seems to have been a typical way that points were gotten across to audiences back then. It certainly got my attention.

Cowper's Veiws

After reading "The Negro's complaint" and "Pity for Poor Africans" I found it fascinating how he approached each poem. The first poem, he takes on a different perspective by writing as a black man who is trying to understand why he is a slave, why it exists and why there has to be suffering so that other people can profit. In "Pity for Poor Africans" is another character who lets the reader know that slavery is bad, yet doesn't want to change it since it's so beneficial to society. I'm just curious as to how the readers of the time took each of these poems concerning slave trade, because they are both so powerful. And also, it seems as though Cowper was almost nontraditional in a sense by displaying such concern for free trade and slavery issues.