After our discussion today, surrounding the big ideas of the course, it got
me thinking about the overall concepts and ideas that we should be taking away
at the end of the semester. It seems that there are three important concepts
that have evolved from the course that must come into consideration.
First and foremost is the political reformation between the Tories and The
Whigs. Political satire, especially as we've seen with Hudibras and Swift was a
huge focus and the opening focal point for the semester. With the shift away
from the ideologies and the monarchical structure of the renaissance, it’s no
wonder that so many early writers in this long 18th century were concerned
about political reformation. Secondly, concern over the status of literature
and the 'proper' education of the masses is crucial. All of the periodical
literature took a stance on the influence of books, the rise of the novel and
the proper education for the public, considering all ages and genders. It seems
the shift was away from political conflict with a move towards the influence of
the novel, especially as many women writers were gaining immense popularity
towards the middle of the century, gaining agency through the financial and
intellectual stability of their works. Third, the shift towards personal
subjectivity is crucial. As with Millennium Hall and Equiano, the humanization
of move towards equal or comparable notions of liberty and opportunity is key.
This is very radical, especially considering that less than 150 years before,
women weren’t even allowed to portray women in plays and the theater.
Overall, these are huge, far reaching issues, things that are still heavily
charged issues even through today. Politics has been and will always be a huge
point of debate and seems to be even more of a point of debate now than it was
with the Cromwell era that exists in this time period. The concern over
literature seems to have dwindled, but the importance of ethnic writers and the
anxiety surrounding popular literature has not, and will probably never, go
away. However, the last issues, about humanization of the other is the one that
most intrigues me. Even in Shakespeare, the notion of the other and orientalism
is prominent, such as in Othello. But the slave narrative we’ve read (are
reading) Equiano, is astounding considering how early it has come up
chronologically compared to the American Slave narratives and the progress
towards freedom of the slaves in America. In addition, the shift towards a
women’s movement and early feminism is heavily prevalent, even though we didn’t
really hit Wollstonecraft. They do recede quite a bit as the industrial boom
hits and as the trope of the ‘madwoman in the attic’ and female insanity crop
up in the Victorian Era. However, the seeds towards a revolution of equality were
being planted, no matter how long it would eventually take for them to form
(such as the emancipation proclamation, the vote for women, civil rights, and
women’s sexual and reproductive rights, etc.)
This was a wonderful wrap up, from the beginning of the semester to what we're working on right now. It's all bundled up, nice and neat. When you have certain themes or happenings that stick out so prominently, it's easy to forget a few things.
ReplyDeleteNice summary. I agree that the development of a social discourse focused on questioning the marginalization of women and ethic "others" is a very important development that came out of the 18th century. Women had to wait for a while to be granted sufferage (in England it was 1918 before this happened), but the ground work laid by the novelists of the 18th century certainly was necessary for this to happen even then. Moreover, many of the issues of racial marginalization which were confronted by writers in that century came to be pivotal in the abolishing first of slave trading (1807), then all slavery (1833) in England and later in the U.S. Imagine what things would be like if such challenges to the Patriarchal hegemony had not been issued by 18th century writers!
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