Oh, the Times, They Aren't a'Changing

While I found Richard D. Brown's Essay "The Revolution's Legacy for the History of the Book" a bit dry, repetitive of other readings, and strangely, confusingly punctuated, I did find the discussion of American print ideology to be interesting in the ways our print ideologies have and have not changed.  Is our passion for Internet accessibility not our belief that "only an informed citizenry could properly identify and repel threats to liberty" (58), or to repel any other evils, for that matter?  And, don't we feel we have the "divine right to that most dreaded, and envied kind of knowledge...of the characters and conduct of... [our] rulers" (59)?  The Clinton scandals seem to shout "Yes we do!" even though other countries were surprised and confused by the American population's interest in and "divine right" to know about private lives of government officials.  Further, is our world of print encouraged to be further polysentric than before? Divided by sub-cultures and interests as well as geography?

I also find the libel laws interesting in light of recent Homeland Security laws and slander lawsuits.  While we would like to believe in our first amendment rights, they may not be any more protective than in the early republic, still a bit of a grey area, in fact.

The differences I see in each of the examples above came from Brown's statement that early Americans would criticize government, "but they would not suffer criticism of the cause of independence" (63).  I think this is one area where we have changed.  I took a seminar in Christian ethics course once entitled "Seminar in Christian Ethics and Economic Justice for All" in which we attempted to find a better form of government than the U.S. democracy.  All the ones we found that eliminated the problems in the U.S. also eliminated independence.  Many of my fellow students felt, in weighing the costs and benefits, it would be worth the loss of independence to have a healthy, well-fed population.  In fact, independence was not a concern mentioned at all and socialism and communism were weighed solely based on their economic successes.  I think the ideologies of Independence Brown discusses, and the American exceptionalism, patriotism, and "tyranny of the majority" (Tocqueville 64) found in other readings are changing.  Once  we had no other tyranny to rebel against, a victory afterglow and westward expansion held Americans together.  Then patriotism and exceptionalism and the American dream.  Now we wonder if there is a better system of government and study and discuss and attempt to bind people together in the common goal of spreading democracy.  I would much rather focus on celebrating Independence, but I suppose we have already had that party and the cake has gotten stale.
             
We still strive to create a "correctly informed citizenry" (68) (whatever that means for whoever is informing whichever group at the time), and we strive to be informed (in a way and on subjects that may be less related to social aspirations on a class level and more to social aspirations on a person to person level).  But can we argue the "tyrannous majority" has less control over privileged perspectives presented in publication (mmmm... p's) than in early American print culture?  The Internet does not protect us from this-- Google is hierarchical in nature, presenting the popular and paid for first.  Though more voices have outlets, do they have audience?  And a "correctly informed" audience at that?

So....witches.

I have written a few papers on witch and vampire traditions, so I know quite a lot about historic representations, but I found a couple of new stories:

I ended up looking for vampires instead after finding a piece about the Malay tradition of carrying around a little, witch/ vampire/ devil hybrid which grants beauty to women in exchange for blood. These Polong are worn in a small, finger sized vial around the neck, and fed weekly by cutting a finger and inserting it into the container.  If they are not fed weekly, they will emerge and drain all the blood from the wearer.  It is a bit like a vampire, but also like a devil's pact in which one sells one's soul for a temporary, earthly price. 
The Penangalan is a bit more like our version of a witch and inhabits a female body, but can leave it to fly about and wreak havoc.  This one also drinks blood and is in cahoots with the devil.

The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines (1817-1833);

Nov 15, 1820; 8, 4)
In another article, "THE TRAVELLER.: THE VAMPIRE SUPERSTITION."American Masonic Register and Literary Companion (1839-1847); Sep 2, 1843; 4, 52, the author describes in detail the superstitions surrounding vampire lore.  It is mostly what we already know like stakes through hearts and pale skin, but it talks a bit more about the signs a corpse is a vampire like hair and finger nails continuing to grow.  This article actually mentions another source's attempts to give scientific explanation of the "signs" of a vampire like an excess of saltpeter in the body.  The author doesn't seem to think these explanations quite satisfy the vampire myth, but then again, neither do I. 

(From: MALAY DEMONS AND WITCHES.: THE POLONG.

Exotic Erotic

You can lose yourself in the results of a key word search through early American periodical poetry-- especially when your keyword is  "Arabian" and you time period 1820- 1860.  I was struck by the focus on romantic and erotic love depicted both in poems attributed to Arab men, and in poems written by American women with a self-proclaimed Arabic theme.  For one thing, I was surprised at the men and women who considered themselves expert enough after traveling amongst Arabs, to title their poems "Arab Song."  Further, the sexualized characters in the poetry written by women surprised me.  Were they simply mimicking other Arabic poems?  Or was the title "Arabic Song" a safeguard, allowing them to write in a different character and thus not bound by social expectations?  Many of the poems praise women and romantic love, depicting the love interest as a precious jewel, flower, and reason for man's living.  The poems seem excessively romantic compared to other poems (even romantic British Victorian poems) and the sexual nature of the woman characters attractions seems less covert than the typical vague garden and fruit references in Victorian poetry.  While other poems speak of an imaginary garden existing separate of the woman subject, these poems place the garden image as a part of the woman in a much less subtle way.  Or maybe I'm just reading too much into them.

With all that said, I chose to look at a collection of several Arabic poems which appear crammed on a page in the Christian Spectator Apr 1, 1825 edition.  Entitled "Specimens of Arabian Poetry" this page collects several incongruous poems including: "On Moderation in Our Pleasures," "On Avarice," "To a Friend on His Birthday," and "On a Cat That Was Killed as She Was Attempting to Rob a Dove House."  The first of these poems is attributed to Abou Alcassim Eben Tabataba and has a very different tone than the romantic poems I found at first.  In fact, all of these poems seem to be a direct rebuttal of the "othering" of Arabic people which occurs in the erotic and exotic romantic poems.  In the first poem, the poet seems rational and fair, focused on monogamy and marriage rather than sexual pleasure in the first poem (an idea supported by Arabic symbols like a allusion to the wedding lamp, which is explained and underscored in an editorial footnote).  In the second poem, by Hatem Tai (noted to be a generous Arabic chief) expounds on the temporary state of wealth-- a "you can't take it with you argument" which aligns neatly with Christian notions of charity and greed.  The third poem "To a Friend on His Birthday," is short and sweet, depicting a kind of a toast to a friend, but with the caution to live "that at thy parting hour" your friends weep at your loss and you are rewarded or dressed in smiles after death.  The final poem is, admittedly, the reason I selected this group.  Any poem on the death of a cat is tops in my book.  But this one is spoiled a bit by another editorial footnote (the editor really wants us to see the moral implications of these poems, I think.  As a side note, the notes' font is larger than that of the poems... take that as you will).  This note states: "The occasion of these verses and their real intent are variously related: but the opinion generally received is that they were composed by Abou Beor as an elegy, on the death of a friend who owed his ruin to the rash gratification of a headstrong passion."  Really ruins the poem for me with that heady moral attached.  In the poem, the narrator has a very jovial, humorous tone, sad about his loss of a cat, but accepting that she had to die because of her behavior.  That is really scary, actually.  Especially if we imagine the poem is symbolic of other particular life errors or sins.  The idea that we just have to accept death as the punishment for falling for temptation seems a bit heavy for poetry.  But what does this mean about the religious doctrine of the Christian Spectator?     

More questions:
What was the goal of the Christian Spectator in presenting this alternative view of Arabic culture which is so closely aligned with Christian values? Why are they called specimens?  Is this a reaction against the erotic nature of other examples?  Is the Christian Spectator capitalizing on the fascination with the exotic Arabian in order to present Christain values and refute immoral insinuations of other texts?

Reading in a Haze

When I was a freshman in high school, I got mono (who didn't, right?) and was locked in my room for about three months with a high fever.  All I could do was read-- TV hurt my head, and this was before high school students had their own computers (I'm old).  So I read A LOT. And for some reason, I read things that are weird and upsetting even if your fever doesn't cause you to imagine you are a character in the story.  Because of this, I remember Wuthering Heights in a very real, physical way and I went through a very strange depression while reading the book.  It was like it took over my life-- like a waking dream or a haunting.  I still love the book, but I think my parents were unaware of how my reading was effecting me and how Gothic literature can seem to a feverish fourteen year old. Lets just say I can sympathize with the "brain fever" that so often plays a role in eighteenth and nineteenth century plots. 

I had a bit of a fever again recently, when we were choosing our articles on Barbary pirates, and this may have been why I was drawn to a poem entitled "Old and Young.: REUBEN JAMES" By William W. Gay. This poem appears in The Independent ... Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, His... Jan 29, 1880.  This poem chronicles a battle between Barbary pirates off the coast of "Afric" (it even calls the pirates "Moslem"), and a famed seaman.  Though it is out of our date range, I chose it to get a later perspective on the Barbary Pirates, some "seventy years ago and more/ in our nation's early life," and because the imagery stayed with me in a very Wuthering Heights fever sort of way.  For one thing, the main character, Reuben James, seems to be completely crippled; in fact, his injuries seem to cover every part of his body mentioned.  I imagined him with an eye patch and two peg legs and two peg arms like the pirate on Family Guy. Also, I don't know if it the rhyme scheme or the fever, but the text seems much more graphic than I expected.  Maybe the rhyme makes the violent imagery seem jovial and thus shocking, or maybe this poem really is shockingly violent and gory, even to my modern, desensitized ears/eyes/imagination.  Either way, it is the type of poem that makes you feel as if you are standing on the deck of a ship, being splashed by blood, hearing the screams of the men fighting around you.  What I am curious about is how this poem has changed or reinterpreted the facts after seventy years or more, about the racial implications of the "Moslem" pirates, and about the focus on Reuben's crippled body and ability to fight.  Is he a martyr in a way?  And if so, what is he a martyr for?  Is he the ideal man? Disability criticism may have a field day with this one as well.